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ATTIRED IN HIGH RUBBER THIGH BOOTS AND 
LEATHER-BOUND BLACK OILSKINS. 


[Frontispiece. 


A MASTER... 

OF FORTUNE 

Being Further Adventures of 
Captain Kettle 


BY 

CUTCLIFFE HYNE 

' I 

AUTHOR OF 

“captain kettle,” “the stronger hand,” “the lost 

CONTINENT,” ETC. 



ILLUSTRATED BY STANLEY L. WOOD 


G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CON GRES'S. 

Two Copies Reseiveo 

MAR. 23 1901 

Copyright entry 
CLASSCt. XXo. No. 
COPY A. 


C('|7U 2. 


Copyright, 1898, 1899, 
By CUTCLIFFE HYNE 


Copyright, 1901, 

By G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY 


A Master of Fortune 




0 -^ 





CONTENTS 


In Quarantine . 


CHAPTER I. 
CHAPTER H. 


The Little Wooden God with the Eyes 

• 

. 26 

CHAPTER HI. 

A Quick Way with Rebels 

• 

. 50 

CHAPTER IV. 

The New Republic ..... 

• 

. 78 

CHAPTER V. 

The Looting of the “Indian Sheriff” 

• 

. 104 

CHAPTER VI. 

The Wire-milkers ..... 

• 

. 132 

CHAPTER VH. 

The Derelict ..... 

• 

. 156 

CHAPTER VHI. 

To Capture an Heiress .... 

• 

. 183 

CHAPTER IX. 

A Matter of Justice .... 

• 

. 210 

CHAPTER X. 

Dago Divers ...... 

• 

. 236 

CHAPTER XL 

The Dear Insured ..... 

• 

. 261 

CHAPTER XH. 

The Fire and the Farm .... 


. 290 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 

Attired in high rubber thigh boots and leather-bound black 
oilskins ..... Frontispiece 

He came and stood with one foot on Kettle’s breast in 

the attitude of a conqueror . . , . .40 

The little army could only march in single file . . 95 

“You insolent little blackguard, you dare to speak to me 
like that!” , . . . . ... . 143 

He picked up the man and sent him after the knife . .175 

“I’m a British subject” ...... 205 

Out of the middle of these spectators jumped the mild, deli- 
cate Hamilton . . . . . . .278 

Strangers came up and wrung Kettle’s unwilling hand . 309 


Dedication 

TO CAPTAIN OWEN KETTLE 


My dear Kettle , — 

With some considerable trepidation, I venture to offer you here 
the dedication of your unauthorized biography. You will read 
these memoirs, I know, and it is my pious hope that you do 
not £t the cap on yourself as their hero. Of course I have sent 
you along your cruises under the decent disguise of a purser's 
name, and I trust that if you do recognize yourself, you will ap- 
preciate this nice feeling on my part. Believe me, it was not en- 
tirely caused by personal fear of that practical form which I am 
sure your displeasure would take if you caught any one putting 
you into print. Even a working novelist has his humane mo- 
ments; and besides iff made you more recognizable, there might 
be a more dangerous broth stirred up, with an ugly international 
favor. Would it be indiscreet to bring one sweltering day in 
Bahia to your memory, where you made play with a German {or 
was he a Scandinavian?) and a hundredweight drum of good 
white lead? or might one hint at that little affair which made 
Odessa bad for your health, and indeed compelled you to keep 
away from Black Sea ports entirely for several years? I trust, 
then, that if you do detect my sin in making myself without leave 
or license your personal historian, you will be induced for the sake 
of your present respectability to give no sign of a ruffled tem- 
per, but recognize me as part of the cross you are appointed 
to bear, and incidentally remember my forbearance in keeping so 
much really splendid material {from my point of view) in snug 
retirement up my sleeve. 

Finally, let me remind you that 1 made no promises not to pub- 
lish, and that you did. Not only were you going to endow the 
world with a book of poems, but I was to have a free copy. This 
has not yet come; and if, for an excuse, you have published no 
secular verse, I am quite willing to commute for a copy of the 
Book of Hymns, provided it is suitably inscribed. 

C. J. C. H. 

Oak Vale, Bradford, 

June 27, 1899. 



A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


CHAPTER I 
IN QUARANTINE 

“The pay is small enough,” said Captain Kettle, 
staring at the blue paper. “It’s a bit hard for a 
man of my age and experience to come down to a 
job like piloting, on eight pound a month and my 
grub.” 

“All right, Capt’n,” replied the agent. “You 
needn’t tell me what I know already. The pay’s 
miserable, the climate’s vile, and the bosses are 
beasts. And j^et we have more applicants for these 
berths on the Congo than there are vacancies for. 
And f’why is it, Capt’n? Because there’s no ques- 
tions asked. The Congo people want men who can 
handle steamers. Their own bloomin’ Belgians 
aren’t worth a cent for that, and so they have to 
get Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, English, Eytalians, 
or any one else that’s capable. They prefer to give 
small pay, and are willing to take the men that 
for various reasons can’t get better jobs elsewhere. 
Guess you’ll know the crowd I mean?” 

“Thoroughly, sir,” said Kettle, with a sigh. 
“There are a very large number of us. But we’re 
not all unfortunate through our own fault.” 

“No, I know,” said the agent. “Rascally owners, 
1 


2 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


unsympathetic Board of Trade, master’s certificate 

suspended quite unjustly, and all that ” The 

agent looked at his watch. “Well, Capt’n, now, 
about this berth? Are you going to take it?” 

“I’ve no other choice.” 

“Right,” said the agent, and pulled a printed 
form on to the desk before him, and made a couple 
of entries. “Let’s see — er — is there a Mrs. Kettle?” 

“Married,” said the little sailor; “three children.” 

The agent filled these details on to the form. 
“Just as well to put it down,” he commented as 
he wrote. “I’m told the Congo Free State has some 
fancy new pension scheme on foot for widdys and 
kids, though I expect it’ll come to nothing, as usual. 
They’re a pretty unsatisfactory lot all round out 
there. Still you may as well have your chance of 
what plums are going. Yer age, Capt’n?” 

‘ ^Thirty-eight. ’ ’ 

“And — er — previous employment? Well, I suppose 
we had better leave that blank as usual. They 
never really expect it to be filled in, or they wouldn’t 
offer such wretchedly small pay and commission. 
You’ve got your master’s ticket to show, and that’s 
about all they want.” 

“There’s my wife’s address, sir. I’d like my half- 
pay sent to her.” 

“She shall have it direct from Brussels, skipper, 
so long as you are alive — I mean, so long as you 
remain in the Congo Service.” 

Captain Kettle sighed again. “Shall I have to 
wait long before this appointment is confirmed?” 

“Why, no,” said the agent. “There’s a boat 
sailing for the Coast to-morrow, and I can give 
you an order for a passage by her. Of course my 
recommendation has to go to Brussels to be ratified, 


IN QUARANTINE 


3 


but that’s only a matter of form. They never refuse 
anybody that offers. They call the Government 
‘Leopold and Co.’ down there on the Congo. You’ll 
understand more about it when you’re on the spot. 

“I’m sorr^^ for ye, Capt’n, but after what you told 
me, I’m afraid it’s the only berth I can shove you 
into. However, don’t let me frighten ye. Take care 
of 3^ourself, don’t do too much work, and you may 
pull through all right. Here’s the order for the 
passage down Coast by the Liverpool boat. And 
now I must ask you to excuse me. I’ve another 
client waiting.” 

* * * -K- * 

In this manner, then. Captain Owen Kettle found 
himself, after many years of weary knocking about 
the seas, enlisted into a regular Government service ; 
and although this Government, for various reasons, 
happened to be one of the most unsatisfactory in 
all the wide, wide world, he thrust this item reso- 
lutely behind him, and swore to himself that if dili- 
gence and crew-driving could bring it about, he 
would rise in that service till he became one of the 
most notable men in Africa. 

“What I want is a competence for the missus and 
kids,” he kept on repeating to himself, “and the 
way to finger that competence is to get power.” 
He never owned to himself that this thirst for power 
was one of the greatest curses of his life; and it 
did not occur to him that his lust for authority, 
and his ruthless use of it when it came in his wa^', 
were the main things which accounted for his want 
of success in life. 

Captain Kettle’s voyage down to the Congo on the 
British and African s.s. M'poso gave time for the 
groundwork of Coast language and Coast thought 


4 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


(which are like unto nothing else on this planet) 
to soak into his system. The steamer progressed 
slowly. She went up rivers protected by dangerous 
bars; she anchored in roadsteads, off forts, and 
straggling towns ; she lay-to off solitary whitewashed 
faetories, which only see a steamer twice a year, 
and brought off little doles of cargo in her surf- 
boats and put on the beaches rubbishy Manchester 
and Brummagem trade goods for native consump- 
tion ; and the talk in her was that queer jargon with 
the polyglot voeabulary in which commerce is trans- 
acted all the way along the sickly West Afriean 
seaboard, from the Goree to St. Paul de Loanda. 

Every white man of the M’poso's crew traded 
on his own private account, and Kettle was ini- 
tiated into the mysteries of the unoffieial retail 
store in the foreeastle, of whose existence Captain 
Image, the commander, and Mr. Balgarnie, the 
purser, professed a blank and child-like ignorance. 

Kettle had come across many types of sea-trader 
in his time, but Captain Image and Mr. Balgarnie 
were new to him. But then most of his surround- 
ings were new. Especially was the Congo Free 
State an organization which was quite strange to 
him. When he landed at Banana, Captain Nilssen, 
pilot of the Lower Congo and Captain of the Port 
of Banana, gave him advice on the subject in lan- 
guage which was plain and unfettered. 

“They are a lot of swine, these Belgians,” said 
Captain Nilssen, from his seat in the Madeira chair 
under the veranda of the pilotage, “and there’s 
mighty little to be got out of them. Here am I, 
with a wife in Kjobnhavn and another in Baltimore, 
and I haven’t been able to get away to ' ''e either 
of them for five blessed years. And mark you, I’m 


IN QUARANTINE 


5 


a man with luck, as luck goes in this hole. I’ve 
been in the lower river pilot service all the time, 
and got the best pay, and the lightest jobs. There’s 
not another captain in the Congo can say as much. 
Some day or other the^^ put a steamboat on the 
ground, and then they’re kicked out from the pilot 
serviee, and away the3^’re off one-time to the upper 
river above the falls, to run a launch, and help at 
the rubber palaver, and get shot at, and colleet 
niggers’ ears, and forget what ehampagne and white 
man’s chop taste like.” 

“You’ve been luckier?” 

“Some. I’ve libbed for Lower Congo all my time; 
had a home in the pilotage here ; and got a dash of 
a case of champagne, or an escribello, or at least 
a joint of fresh meat out of the refrigerator from 
every steamboat I took either up or down.” 

“But then you speak languages?” said Kettle. 

“Seven,” said Captain Nilssen; “and use just one, 
and that’s English. Shows what a fat lot of in- 
fluence this Etat du Congo has got. Why, you 
have to give orders even to j^our boat-boys in Coast 
English if you want to be understood. French has 
no sort of show with the niggers.” 

Now white men are expensive to import to the 
Congo Free State, and are apt to die with sudden- 
ness soon after their arrival, and so the State 
(which is in a chronic condition of hard-up) does 
not fritter their services unnecessarily. It sets them 
to work at once so as to get the utmost possi- 
ble value out of them whilst they remain alive and 
in the country. 

A steamer came in within a dozen hours of Kettle’s 
first stepping ashore, and signalled for a pilot to 
Boma. Nilssen was next in rotation for duty, and 


« A MASTER OF FORTUNE 

went off in liis boat to board her, and he took 
with him Captain Owen Kettle to impart to him 
the mysteries of the great river’s navigation. 

The boat-boys sang a song explanatory of their 
notion of the new pilot’s personality as they eaught 
at the paddles, but as the song was in Fiote, even 
Nilssen eould only eateh up a phrase here and there, 
just enough to gather the drift. He did not trans- 
late, however. He had taken his new comrade’s 
measure pretty accurately, and judged that he was 
not a man who would accept criticism from a 
negro. So having an appetite for peace himself, he 
allowed the custom of the country to go on un- 
disturbed. 

The steamer was outside, leaking steam at an 
anchorage, and sending out dazzling heliograms 
every time she rolled her bleached awnings to the 
sun. The pilot’s boat, with her crew of savages, 
paddled towards her, down channels between the 
mangrove-planted islands. The water spurned up 
by the paddle blades was the color of beer, and 
the smell of it was ptizzlingly familiar. 

“Good old smell,” said Nilssen, “isn’t it? I see 
you snuffling. Trying to guess where you met it 
before, eh? We all do that when we first come. 
What about crushed marigolds, eh?” 

“Crushed marigolds it is.” 

“Guess you’ll get to know it better before you’re 
through with your service here. Well, here we are 
alongside.” 

The steamer was a Portuguese, officered by Por- 
tuguese, and manned b^^ Krooboys, and the smell of 
her drowned even the marigold : cent of the river. 
Her dusky skipper exuded perspiration and affability, 
but he was in a great hurry to get on with his 


IN QUARANTINE 


7 


voyage. The forecastle windlass clacked as the 
pilot boat drew into sight, heaving the anchor out 
of the river floor; the engines were restarted so 
soon as ever the boat hooked on at the foot of the 
Jacob’s ladder; and the vessel was under a full 
head of steam again by the time the two white 
men had stepped on to her oily deck. 

^‘When you catch a Portuguese in a hurry like 
this,” said Nilssen to Kettle as they made their 
way to the awninged bridge, “it means there’s 
something wrong. I don’t suppose we shall be 
told, but keep your eyes open.” 

However, there was no reason for prying. Cap- 
tain Rabeira was quite open about his desire for 
haste. “I got haccalhao and passenger boys for a 
cargo, an’ dose don’ keep,” said he. 

“We smelt the fish all the way from Banana,” 
said Nilssen. “Guess you ought to call it stinking 
fish, not dried fish. Captain. And we can see your 
nigger passengers. They seem worried. Are you 
losing ’em much?” 

“I done funeral palaver for eight between Loanda 
an’ here, an’ dem was a dead loss-a. I don’ only 
get paid for dem dat lib for beach at Boma. Dere 
was a fire-bar made fast to the leg of each for sink- 
er, an’ dem was my dead loss-a too. I don’ get 

paid for fire-bars given to gastados ’ ’ His English 

failed him. He shrugged his shoulders, and said 
“Sabbey?” 

“Sabbey plenty,” said Nilssen. “Just get me a 
leadsman to work. Captain. If you’re in a hurry. 
I’ll skim the banks as close as I dare.” 

Rabeira called g way a hand to heave the lead, and 
sent a steward lor a bottle of wine and glasses. 
He even offered camp stools, which, naturally, the 


8 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


pilots did not use. In fact, he brimmed with affable- 
ness and hospitality. 

From the first moment of his stepping on to the 
bridge, Kettle began to learn the details of his new 
craft. As each sandbar showed up beneath the yel- 
low ripples, as each new point of the forest-clad 
banks opened out, Nilssen gave him courses and 
cross bearings, dazing enough to the unprofessional 
ear, but easily stored in a trained seaman’s brain. 
He discoursed in easy slang of the cut-offs, the cur- 
rents, the sludge-shallows, the floods, and the other 
vagaries of the great river’s course, and punctuated 
his discourse with draughts of Rabeira’s wine, and 
comments on the tangled mass of black humanity 
under the forecastle-head awning. 

“There’s something wrong with those passenger 
boys,’’ he kept on repeating. And another time: 
“Guess those niggers yonder are half mad with 
funk about something.” 

But Rabeira was always quick to reassure him. 
“Now dey lib for Congo, dey not like the idea of 
soldier-palaver. Dere was nothing more the matter 
with them but leetle sickness.” 

“Oh ! it’s recruits for the State Army you’re bring- 
ing, is it?” asked Kettle. 

“If you please,” said Rabeira cheerfully. “Slaves 
is what you English would call dem. Laborers is 
what dey call demselves.” 

Nilssen looked anxiously at his new assistant. 
Would he have any foolish English sentiment against 
slavery, and make a fuss? Nilssen, being a man of 
peace, sincerely hoped not. But as it was. Captain 
Kettle preserved a grim silence. He had met the 
low-caste African negro before, and knew that it 
required a certain amount of coercion to extract 


IN QUARANTINE 


9 


work from him. But he did notice that all the 
Portuguese on board were armed like pirates, and 
were constantly on the qui vive, and judged that 
there was a species of coercion on this vessel which 
would stick at very little. 

The reaches of the great beer-colored river opened 
out before them one after another in endless vistas, 
and at rare places the white roofs of a factory 
showed amongst the unwholesome tropical greenery 
of the banks. Nilssen gave names to these, spoke 
of their inhabitants as friends, and told of the 
amount of trade in palm-oil and kernels which each 
could be depended on to yield up as cargo to the 
ever-greedy steamers. But the attention of neither 
of the pilots was concentrated on piloting. The 
unrest on the forecastle-head was too obvious to 
be overlooked. 

Once, when the cackle of negro voices seemed to 
point to an immediate outbreak, Rabeira gave an 
order, and presently a couple of cubical green boxes 
were taken forward by the ship’s Krooboys, broken 
up, and the square bottles which they contained, 
distributed to greedy fingers. 

“Dashing ’em gin,” said Nilssen, looking serious. 
“Guess a Portugee’s in a bad funk before he dashes 
gin at four francs a dozen to common passenger 
boys. I’ve a blame’ good mind to put this vessel 
on the ground — by accident — and go off in the gig 
for assistance, and bring back a State launch.” 

“Better not risk your ticket,” said Kettle. “If 
there’s a row, I’m a bit useful in handling that sort 
of cattle myself.” 

Nilssen eyed wistfully a swirl of the yellow water 
which hid a sandbar, and, with a sigh, gave the 
quartermaster a course which cleared it. “ Guess 


30 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


I don’t like ructions myself,” he said. “Hullo, 
what’s up now? There are two of the passenger 
boys getting pushed off the forecastle-head by their 
own friends on to the main deck.” 

“They look a mighty sick couple,” said Kettle, 
“and their friends seem very frightened. If this ship 
doesn’t carry a doctor, it would be a good thing 
if the old man were to start in and deal out some 
drugs.” 

It seemed that Rabeira was of the same opinion. 
He went down to the main deck, and there, under 
the scorching tropical sunshine, interviewed the two 
sick negroes in person, and afterwards administered 
to each of them a draught from a blue glass bottle. 
Then he came up, smiling and hospitable and per- 
spiring, on to the bridge, and invited the pilots to 
go below and dine. “Chop lib for cabin,” said he; 
“palm-oil chop, plenty-too-much-good. You lib for 
below and chop. I take dem ship myself up dis 
next reach.” 

“Well, it is plain, deep water,” said Nilssen, “and 
I guess you sabbey how to keep in the middle as 
well as I do. Come along. Kettle.” 

The pair of them went below to the baking cabin 
and dined off a savory orange-colored stew, and 
washed it down with fiery red wine, and dodged 
the swarming, crawling cockroaches. The noise of 
angry negro voices came to them between whiles 
through the hot air, like the distant chatter of apes. 

The Dane was obviously ill at ease and frightened ; 
the Englishman, though feeling a contempt for his 
companion, was very much on the alert himself, and 
prepared for emergencies. There was that mysterious 
something in the atmosphere which would have 
bidden the dullest of mortals prepare for danger. 


IN QUARANTINE 


11 


Up they came on deck again, and on to the bridge. 
Rabeira himself was there in charge, dark, smiling, 
affable as ever. 

Nilssen looked sharply down at the main deck 
below. “Hullo,” said he, “those two niggers gone 
already? You haven’t shifted them down below, I 
suppose?” 

The Portuguese Captain shrugged his shoulders. 
“No,” he said, “it was bad sickness, an’ dey died 
an’ gone over the side. I lose by their passage. 
I lose also the two fire-bar which I give for funeral 
palaver. Ver’ disappointing.” 

“Sudden kind of sickness,” said Nilssen. 

“Dis sickness is. It make a man lib for die in 
one minute, clock time. But it don’ matter to you 
pilot, does it? You lib for below — off duty — dis las’ 
half hour. You see nothing, you sabby nothing. 
I don’ want no trouble at Boma with doctor pala- 
ver. I make it all right for you after. Sabby?” 

“Oh, I tumble to what you’re driving at, but I 
was just thinking out how it works. However, 
you’re captain of this ship, and if you choose not 
to log down a couple of deaths, I suppose it’s your 
palaver. Anyway, I don’t want to caUvSe no ill- 
will, and if you think it’s worth a dash, I don’t 
see why I shouldn’t earn it. It’s little enough 
we pick up else in this service, and I’ve got a wife 
at home in Liverpool who has to be thought 
about.” 

Kettle drew a deep breath. “It seems to me,” he 
said, looking very hard at the Portuguese, “that those 
men died a bit too sudden. Are you sure they were 
pukka dead when you put them over the side?” 

“Oh, yes,” said Rabeira smilingly, “an’ dey made 
no objection. It was best dey should go over quick. 


12 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


Bodies do not keep in this heat. An’ pilot, I do 
you square-a, same as with Nilssen. You shall have 
your dash when doctor-palaver set.” 

“No,” said Kettle, “you may keep it in your own 
trousers. Captain. Money that you’ve fingered, is 
a bit too dirty for me to touch.” 

“All right,” said Rabeira with a genial shrug, 
“so much cheaper for me. But do not talk on the 
beach, dere’s good boy, or you make trouble-palaver 
for me.” 

“I’ll shut my head if you stop at this,” said 
Kettle, “but if you murder any more of those poor 
devils. I’ll see you sent to join them, if there’s 
enough law in this State to rig a gallows.” 

The Portuguese did not get angry. On the con- 
trary, he seemed rather pleased at getting what 
he wanted without having to bribe for it, and or- 
dered up fresh glasses and another bottle of wine 
for the pilots’ delectation. But this remained un- 
touched. Kettle would not drink himself, and Nils- 
sen (who wished to be at peace with both sides) 
did not wish to under the circumstances. 

To tell the truth, the Dane was beginning to get 
rather scared of his grim-visaged little companion ; 
and so, to prevent further recurrence to unpleasant 
topics, he plunged once more into the detail of pro- 
fessional matters. Here was a grassy swamp that 
was a deep water channel the year before last; 
there was a fair-way in the process of silting up; 
there was a mud-bar with twenty-four feet, but 
steamers drawing twenty-seven feet could scrape 
over, as the mud was soft. The current round 
that bend raced at a good eleven knots. That 
bank below the palm clump was where an Ital- 
ian pilot stuck the M'poso for a month, and got 


IN QUARANTINE 


13 


sent to upper Congo (where he was eaten by 
some rebellious troops) as a recompense for his 
blunder. 

Almost every curve of the river was remembered 
by its tragedy, and had they only known it, the 
steamer which carried them for their observation 
had hatching within her the germs of a very worthy 
addition to the series. 

More trouble cackled out from the forecastle-head, 
and more of the green gin cases were handed up to 
quell it. The angry cries gradually changed to 
empty boisterous laughter, as the raw potato spirit 
soaked home; and the sullen, snarling faces melted 
into grotesque, laughing masks ; but withal the car- 
nival was somewhat grisly. 

It was clear that more than one was writhing 
with the pangs of sickness. It was clear also that 
none of these (having in mind the physicking and 
fate of their predecessors) dared give way, but with 
a miserable gaiety danced, and drank, and guf- 
fawed with the best. Two, squatting on the deck, 
played tom-tom on upturned tin pans; another 
jingled two pieces of rusty iron as accompaniment ; 
and all who in that crowded space could find foot 
room, danced shuff-shuff-shuffle with absurd and 
aimless gestures. 

The fort at Chingka drew in sight, with a B. and 
A. boat landing concrete bags at the end of its 
wharf; and on beyond, the sparse roofs of the cap- 
ital of the Free State blistered and buckled under 
the sun. The steamer, with hooting siren, ran up her 
gaudy ensign, and came to an anchor in the stream 
twenty fathoms off the State wharf A yellow-faced 
Belgian, with white sun helmet and white umbrella, 
presently came off in the doctor’s boat, and an- 


14 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


iiounced himself as the health officer of the port, and 
put the usual questions. 

Rabeira lied pleasantly and glibly. Sickness he 
owned to, but when on the word the doctor hur- 
riedly made his boat-boys pull clear, he laughed and 
assured him that the sickness was nothing more 
than a little fever, such as any one might suffer 
from in the morning, and be out, cured, and mak- 
ing merry again before nightfall. 

That kind of fever is known in the Congo, and 
the doctor was reassured, and bade his boat-boys 
pull up again. Yet because of the evil liver within 
him, his temper was short, and his questioning 
acid. But Captain Rabeira was stiff and unruffled 
and wily as ever, and handed in his papers and an- 
swered questions, and swore to anjrthing that was 
asked, as though care and he were divorced for- 
ever. 

Kettle watched the scene with a drawn, moist face. 
He did not know what to do for the best. It seemed 
to him quite certain that this oily, smiling scoundrel, 
whom he had more than half suspected of a particu- 
larly callous and brutal double murder, would be 
gwen pratique for his ship, and be able to make his 
profits unrestrained. The shipmaster’s esprit de 
eorps prevented him from interfering personally, 
but he very much desired that the heavens would 
fall — somehow or other — so that justice might be 
done. 

A deus ex maehina came to fill his wishes. The 
barter of words and the conning of documents 
had gone on ; the doctor’s doubts were on the point 
of being lulled for good ; and in a matter of another 
ten seconds pratique would have been given. But 
from the forecastle-head there came a yell, a chatter 


IN QUARANTINE 


15 


of barbaric voices, a scuffle and a scream; a gray- 
black figure mounted the rail, and poised there a 
moment, an offence to the sunlight, and then, falling 
convulsively downwards, hit the yellow water with 
a smack and a spatter of spray, and sank from 
sight. 

A couple of seconds later the creature reappeared, 
swimming frenziedly, as a dog swims, and by a swirl 
of the current (before anybody quite knew what 
was happening) was swept down against the doc- 
tor’s boat, and gripped ten bony fingers upon the 
gunwhale and lifted towards her people a face and 
shoulders eloquent of a horrible disorder. 

Instantly there was an alarm, and a sudden panic. 
“Sacre nom d’un pipe^'^ rapped out the Belgian 
doctor; ^WarioleP^ 

“Small-pox lib,” whimpered his boat-boys, and 
before their master could interfere, beat at the de- 
lirious wretch with their oars. He hung on tena- 
ciously, enduring a perfect avalanche of blows. 
But mere flesh and bone had to wither under that 
onslaught, and at last, by sheer weight of battering, 
he was driven from his hold, and the beer-colored 
river covered him then and for always. 

After that, there was no further doubt of the next 
move. The yellow-faced doctor sank back exhausted 
in the stern sheets of the gig, and gave out sentence 
in gasps. The ship was declared unclean until fur- 
ther notice ; she was ordered to take up a berth a 
mile away against the opposite bank of the river 
till she was cleared of infection ; she was commanded 
to proceed there at once, to anchor, and then to 
blow off all her steam. 

The doctor’s tortured liver prompted him, and he 
spoke with spite. He called Rabeira every vile name 


16 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


which came to his mind, and wound up his har- 
angue by rowing off to Chingka to make sure that 
the guns of the fort should back up his commands. 

The Portuguese captain was daunted then; there 
is no doubt about that. He had known of this 
outbreak of small-pox for two days, had stifled his 
qualms, and had taken his own peculiar methods of 
keeping the disease hidden, and securing money 
profit for his ship. He had even gone so far as to 
carry a smile on his dark, oily face, and a jest on 
his tongue. But this prospect of being shut up with 
the disorder till it had run its course inside the 
walls of the ship, and no more victims were to be 
claimed, was too much for his nerve. He fled like 
some frightened animal to his room, and deliber- 
ately set about guzzling a surfeit of neat spirit. 

Nilssen, from the bridge, fearful for his eredit with 
the State, his employer, roared out orders, but no- 
body attended to them. Mates, quartermasters, 
Krooboys, had all gone aft so as to be as far as 
possible from the smitten area; and in the end it 
was Kettle who went to the forecastle-head, and 
with his own hands let steam into the windlass 
and got the anchor. He stayed at his place. An 
engineer and fireman were still below, and when 
Nilssen telegraphed down, they put her under weigh 
again, and the older pilot with his own hands 
steered her across to the quarantine berth. Then 
Kettle let go the anchor again, paid out and stop- 
pered the cable, and once more came aft ; and from 
that moment the new regime of the steamer may 
be said to have commenced. 

In primitive communities, from time immemorial, 
the strongest man has become chieftain through 
sheer natural selection. Societies which have been 


IN QUARANTINE 


17 


upheaved to their roots by anarchy, panic, or any 
of these more perfervid emotions, revert to the prim- 
itive state. On this Portuguese ship, authority was 
smashed into the smallest atoms, and every man 
became a savage and was in danger at the hands of 
his fellow savage. 

Rabeira had drunk himself into a stupor before 
the boilers had roared themselves empty through 
the escapes. The two mates and the engineers 
cowered in their rooms as though the doors were 
a barrier against the small-pox germs. The Kroo- 
boys broached cargo and strewed the decks with 
their half-naked bodies, drunk on gin, amid a litter 
of smashed green cases. 

Meals ceased. The Portuguese cook and steward 
dropped their collective duties from the first alarm ; 
the Kroo cook left the rice steamer because “steam 
no more lib” ; and any one who felt hunger or thirst 
on board, foraged for himself, or went without sat- 
isfying his wants. Nobody helped the sick, or chided 
the drunken. Each man lived for himself alone — or 
died, as the mood seized him. 

Nilssen took up his quarters at one end of the 
bridge, frightened, but apathetic. With awnings 
he made himself a little canvas house, airy, but 
sufficient to keep off the dews of night. When he 
spoke, it was usually to picture the desolation of 
one or other of the Mrs. Nilssens on finding herself 
a widow. As he said himself, he was a man of very 
domesticated notions. He had no sympathy with 
Kettle’s constantly repeated theory that discipline 
ought to be restored. 

“Guess it’s the captain’s palaver,” he would say. 
“If the old man likes his ship turned into a bear 
garden, ’tisn’t our grub they’re wasting, or our 
2 


18 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


cargo they’ve started in to broach. Anyway, what 
can we do? You and I are only on board here as 
pilots. I wish the ship was in somewhere hotter 
than Africa, before I’d ever seen her.” 

“So do I,” said Kettle. “But being here, it makes 
me ill to see the way she’s allowed to rot, and those 
poor beasts of niggers are left to die just as they 
please. Four more of them have either jumped 
overboard, or been put there by their friends. 
The dirt of the place is awful. They’re spreading 
small-pox poison all over the ship. Nothing is ever 
cleaned.” 

“There’s dysentery started, too.” 

“Very well,” said Kettle, “then that settles it. 
We shall have cholera next, if we let dirt breed any 
more. I’m going to start in and make things ship- 
shape again.” 

“For why?” 

“We’ll say I’m frightened of them as they are at 
present, if you like. Will you chip in and bear a 
hand? You’re frightened, too.” 

“Oh, I’m that, and no error about it. But you 
don’t catch me interfering. I’m content to sit here 
and take my risks as they come, because I can’t 
help myself. But I go no further. If you start 
knocking about this ship’s company they’ll complain 
ashore, and then where’ll you be? The Congo Free 
State don’t like pilots who do more than they’re 
paid for.” 

“Very well,” said Kettle, “I’ll start in and take 
my risks, and you can look on and umpire.” He 
walked deliberately down off the bridge, went to 
where the mate was dozing against a skylight on 
the quarter deck, and stirred him into wakefulness 
with his foot. 


IN QUARANTINE 


19 


“Well?” said the man. 

“Turn the hands to, and clean ship.” 

“What!” 

“You hear me.” 

The mate inquired, with abundant verbal garnish- 
ings, by what right Kettle gave the order. 

“Because I’m a better man than you. Because 
I’m best man on board. Do you want proof?” 

Apparently the mate did. He whipped out a knife, 
but found it suddenly knocked out of his hand, and 
sent skimming like a silver flying fish far over the 
gleaming river. He followed up the attack with an 
assault from both hands and feet, but soon discov- 
ered that he had to deal with an artist. He gath- 
ered himself up at the end of half a minute’s inter- 
view, glared from two half-shut eyes, wiped the 
blood from his mouth, and inquired what Kettle 
wanted. 

“You heard my order. Carry it out.” 

The man nodded, and went away sullenly mut- 
tering that his time would come. 

“If you borrow another knife,” said Kettle cheer- 
fully, “and try any more of your games. I’ll shoot 
you like a crow, and thank you for the chance. 
You’ll go forrard and clean the forecastle-head and 
the fore main deck. Be gentle with those sick I Sec- 
ond Mate?” 

“Si, Senor.” 

“Get a crew together and clean her up aft here. 
Do you want any rousing along?” 

Apparently the second mate did not. He had 
seen enough of Captain Kettle’s method already to 
quite appreciate its efficacy. The Krooboys, with 
the custom of servitude strong on them, soon fell-to 
when once they were started. The thump of holy- 


20 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


stones went up into the baking air, and grimy 
water began to dribble from the scuppers. 

With the chief engineer Kettle had another scuffle. 
But he, too, was eased of the knife at the back of his 
belt, thumped into submissiveness, and sent with 
firemen and trimmers to wash paint in the stewy 
engine-room below, and clean up the rusted iron 
work. And then those of the passenger boys who 
were not sick, were turned-to also. 

With Captain Rabeira, Kettle did not interfere. 
The man stayed in his own room for the present, 
undisturbed and undisturbing. But the rest of the 
ship’s complement were kept steadily to their em- 
ployment. 

They did not like it, but they thought it best to 
submit. Away back from time unnumbered, the 
African peoples have known only fear as the gov- 
erning power, and, from long acclimatization, the 
Portuguese might almost count as African. This man 
of a superior race came and set himself up in author- 
ity over them, in defiance of all precedent, law, 
everything; and they submitted with dull indifier- 
ence. The sweets of freedom are not always appre- 
ciated by those who have known the easy luxury of 
being slaves. 

The plague was visibly stayed from almost the 
very first day that Kettle took over charge. The 
sick recovered or died ; the sound sickened no more : 
it seemed as though the disease microbes on board 
the ship were glutted. 

A mile away, at the other side of the beer-col- 
ored river, the rare houses of Boma sprawled 
amongst the low burnt-up hills, and every day the 
doctor with his bad liver came across in his boat 
under the blinding sunshine to within shouting dis- 


IN QUARANTINE 


21 


tance, and put a few wear^^ questions. The formal- 
ities were slack enough. Nilssen usually made the 
necessary replies (as he liked to keep himself in the 
doctor’s good books), and then the boat would 
row away. 

Nilssen still remained gently non-interferent. He 
was paid to be a pilot by the Etat Independant 
du Congo — so he said — and he was not going to risk 
a chance of trouble, and no possibility of profit, 
by meddling with matters beyond his own sphere. 
Especially did he decline to be co-sharer in Kettle’s 
scheme for dealing out justice to Captain Rabeira. 

“It is not your palaver,” he said, “or mine. If 
you want to stir up trouble, tell the State author- 
ities when you get ashore. That won’t do much 
good either. They don’t value niggers at much out 
here.” 

“Nor do I,” said Kettle. “There’s nothing foolish 
with me about niggers. But there’s a limit to every- 
thing, and this snuff-colored Dago goes too far. 
He’s got to be squared with, and I’m going to do 
it.” 

“Guess it’s your palaver. I’ve told you what the 
risks are.” 

“And I’m going to take them,” said Kettle grim- 
ly. “You may watch me handle the risks now with 
your own eyes, if you wish.” 

He went down off the bridge, walked along the 
clean decks, and came to where a poor wretch lay 
in the last stage of small-pox collapse. He ex- 
amined the man carefully. “My friend,” he said at 
last, “you’ve not got long for this world, anyway, 
and I want to borrow your last moments. I sup- 
pose you won’t like to shift, but it’s in a good 
cause, and anyway you can’t object.” 


22 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


He stooped and lifted the loathsome bundle in his 
arms, and then, in spite of a cry of expostulation 
from Nilssen, walked off with his burden to Ra- 
beira’s room. 

The Portuguese captain was in his bunk, trying to 
sleep. He was sober for the first time for many 
days, and, in consequence, feeling not a little ill. 

Kettle deposited his charge with carefulness on 
the littered settee, and Rabeira started up with a 
wild scream of fright and a babble of oaths. Kettle 
shut and locked the door. 

“Now look here,” he said, “you’ve earned more 
than you’ll ever get paid in this life, and there’s a 
tolerably heavy bill against you for the next. It 
looks to me as if it would be a good thing if you 
went off there to settle up the account right now. 
But I’m not going to take upon myself to be your 
hangman. I’m just going to give you a chance of 
pegging out, and I sincerely hope you’ll take it. 
I’ve brought our friend here to be your room mate 
for the evening. It’s just about nightfall now, and 
you’ve got to stay with him till daybreak.” 

“You coward!” hissed the man. “You coward! 
You coward !” he screamed. 

“Think so?” said Kettle gravely. “Then if that’s 
your idea. I’ll stay here in the room, too, and take 
my risks. God’s seen the game, and I’ll guess He’ll 
hand over the beans fairly.” 

Perspiration stood in beads on all their faces. 
The room, the one unclean room of the ship, was 
full of breathless heat, and stale with the lees of 
drink. Kettle, in his spruce white drill clothes, 
stood out against the squalor and the disorder, as 
a mirror might upon a coal-heap. 

The Portuguese captain, with nerves smashed by 


IN QUARANTINE 


23 


his spell of debauch, played a score of parts. First 
he was aggressive, asserting his rights as a man 
and the ship’s master, and demanding the key of the 
door. Then he was warlike, till his frenzied attack 
earned him such a hiding that he was glad enough 
to crawl back on to the mattress of his bunk. 
Then he was beseeching. And then he began to be 
troubled with zoological hauntings, which occupied 
him till the baking air cooled with the approach of 
the dawn. 

The smitten negro on the settee gave now and 
then a moan, but for the most part did his dying 
with quietness. Had Kettle deliberately worked for 
that purpose, he could not have done anything more 
calculated to make the poor wretch’s last moments 
happy. 

^‘Oh, Massa!” he kept on whispering, “too-much- 
fine room. Y ou plenty-much good for let me lib for 
die heah.” And then he would relapse into barbaric 
chatterings more native to his taste, and fitting to 
his condition. 

Captain Kettle played his parts as nurse and 
warder with grave attention. He sat perspiring in 
his shirt sleeves, writing at the table whenever for 
a moment or two he had a spell of rest; and his 
screed grew rapidly. He was making verse, and it 
was under the stress of severe circumstances like 
these that his Muse served him best. 

The fetid air of the room throbbed with heat; 
the glow from the candle lamp was a mere yellow 
flicker; and the Portuguese, who cowered with 
twitching fingers in the bunk, was quite ready to 
murder him at the slightest opening: it was not a 
combination of circumstances which would have in- 
spired many men. 


24 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


Morning came, with a shiver and a chill, and with 
the first flieker of dawn, the last spark of the ne- 
gro’s life went out. Kettle nodded to the ghastly 
face as though it had been an old friend. “You 
seemed to like being made use of,” he said. “Well, 
daddy, I hope you have served your turn. If your 
skipper hasn’t got the plague in his system now, I 
shall think God’s forgotten this bit of Africa en- 
tirely.” 

He stood up, gathered his papers, slung the spruce 
white drill coat over his arm, and unloeked the 
door. “Captain Rabeira,” he said, “you have my 
full permission to resume your oceupation of going 
to the deuee your own way.” With whieh parting 
salutation, he went below to the steamer’s bath- 
room and took his morning tub. 

Half an hour passed before he came to the deek 
again, and Nilssen met him at the head of the com- 
panion-way with a queer look on his face. “Well,” 
he said, “you’ve done it.” 

“Done what?” 

“Scared Rabeira over the side.” 

“How?” 

“He came scampering on deck just now, yelling blue 
murder, and trying to catch crawly things that 
weren’t there. Guess he’d got jim-jams bad. Then 
he took it into his head that a swim would be 
useful, and before any one could stop him, he was 
over the side.” 

“Well?” 

“He’s over the side still,” said the Dane drily. 
“He didn’t come to the surface. Guess a crocodile 
chopped him.” 

“There are plenty round.” 

“Naturally. We’ve been ground baiting pretty 


IN QUARANTINE 


25 


liberally these last few weeks. Well, I guess we 
are about through with the business now. Not ner- 
vous about yourself, eh?” 

“No,” said Kettle, and touched his cap. “God’s 
been looking on at this gamble, as I told Rabeira 
last night, and He dealt over the beans the way 
they were earned.” 

“That’s all right,” said Nilssen cheerfully. “When 
a man keeps his courage he don’t get small-pox, 
you bet.” 

“Well,” said Kettle, “I suppose we’ll be fumigated 
and get a clean bill in about ten days from now, 
and I’m sure I don’t mind the bit of extra rest. 
I’ve got a lot of stuff I want to write up. It’s 
come in my head lately, and I’ve had no time to get 
it down on paper. I shouldn’t wonder but what 
it makes a real stir some day when it’s printed; 
it’s real good stuff. I wonder if that yellow-faced 
Belgian doctor will live to give us pratique?'^ 

“I never saw a man with such a liver on him.” 

“D’you know,” said Kettle, “I’d like that doctor 
to hang on just for another ten days and sign our 
bill. He’s a surly brute, but I’ve got to have quite 
a liking for him. He seems to have grown to be 
part of the show, just like the crows, and the sun, 
and the marigold smell, and the crocodiles.” 

“Oh,” said Nilssen, “you’re a blooming poet. Come, 
have a cocktail before we chop.” 


CHAPTER II. 

THE LITTLE WOODEN GOD WITH THE EYES. 

The colored Mrs. Nilssen, of Banana, gave the 
pink gin cocktails a final brisk up with the swizzle- 
stick, poured them out with accurate division, and 
handed the tray to Captain Kettle and her husband. 
The men drank off the appetizer and put down the 
glasses. Kettle nodded a word of praise for the 
mixture and thanks to its concoctor, and Mrs. Nils- 
sen gave a flash of white teeth, and then shuffled 
away off the veranda, and vanished within the 
bamboo walls of the pilotage. 

Nilssen sank back into his long-sleeved Madeira 
chair, a perfect wreck of a man, and Kettle sat up 
and looked at him with a serious face. “Look 
here,” he said, “you should go home, or at any rate 
run North for a spell in Grand Canary. If you fool 
with this health-palaver any longer, you’ll peg out.” 

The Dane stared wistfully out across the blue 
South Atlantic waters, which twinkled beyond the 
littered garden and the sand beach. “Yes,” he said, 
“I’d like well enough to go back to my old woman 
in Boston again, and eat pork and beans, and hear 
her talk of culture, and the use of missionaries, and 
all that good old homey rot; but I guess I can’t 
do that yet. I’ve got to shake this sickness oflf 
me right here, first.” 

“And I tell you you’ll never be a sound man again 


THE LITTLE WOODEN GOD 


27 


SO long as you lib for Congo. Take a trip home, 
Captain, and let the salt air blow the diseases out 
of you.” 

“If I go to sea,” said the pilot wearily, “I shall 
be stitched up within the week, and dropped over 
to make a hole in the water. I don’t know whether 
I’m going to get well anywhere, but if I do, it’s 
right here. Now just hear me. You’re the only 
living soul in this blasted Congo Free State that I 
can trust worth a cent, and I believe you’ve got 
grit enough to get me cured if only you’ll take the 
trouble to do it. I’m too weak to take on the job 
myself ; and, even if I was sound, I reckon it would 
be beyond my weight. I tell you it’s a mighty big 
contract. But then, as I’ve seen for myself, you’re 
a man that likes a scuffle.” 

“You’re speaking above my head. Pull yourself 
together. Captain, and then, perhaps, I’ll under- 
stand what you want.” 

Nilssen drew the quinine bottle toward him, 
tapped out a little hill of feathery white powder 
into a cigarette paper, rolled it up, and swallowed 
the dose. “I’m not raving,” he said, “or anywhere 
near it; but if you want the cold-drawn truth, 
listen here: I’m poisoned. I’ve got fever on me, 
too, I’ll grant, but that’s nothing more than a 
fellow has every week or so in the ordinary wa^^ 
of business. I guess with quinine, whiskey, and 
pills, I can smile at any fever in Africa, and have 
done this last eight years. But it’s this poison that 
gets me.” 

“Bosh,” said Kettle. Tf it was me that talked 
about getting poisoned, there’ d be some sense in it. 
I know I’m not popular here. But you’re a man 
that’s liked. You hit it off with these Belgian 


28 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


brutes, and you make the niggers laugh. Who 
wants to poison you?” 

“All right,” said Nilssen; “you’ve been piloting on 
the Congo some six months now, and so of course 
you know all about it. But let me know a bit 
better. I’ve watched the tricks of the niggers here- 
away for a good many years now, and I’ve got a 
big respect for their powers when they mean mis- 
chief” 

“Have you been getting their backs up, then?” 

“Yes. You’ve seen that big ju-ju in my room?” 

“That foul-looking wooden god with the looking- 
glass eyes?” 

“Just that. I don’t know where the preciousness 
comes in, but it’s a thing of great value.” 

“How did you get hold of it?” 

“Well, I suppose if you want to be told flatly, I 
scoffed it. You see, it was in charge of a passenger 
boy, who brought it aboard the JVTposo at Matadi. 
He landed across by canoe from Vivi, and wanted 
steamer passage down to Boma by the ATposo. I 
was piloting her, and I got my eye on that ju-ju’ 
from the very first. Captain Image and that thief 
of a purser Balgarnie were after it, too, but as it 
was a bit of a race between us as to who should 
get it first, one couldn’t wait to be too particular.” 

“What did you want it for? Did you know it 
was valuable then?” 

“Oh, no ! I thought it was merely a white-washed 

’ A ju-ju in West African parlance may be a large carved idol, 
or merely a piece of rag, or skin, or anything else that the native 
is pleased to set up as a charm. Ju-ju also means witchcraft. If 
you poison a man, you put ju-ju on him. If you see anything you 
do not understand, you promptly set it down as ju-ju. Similarly 
chop is food, and also the act of feeding. “ One-time ” is imme - 
diately. 


THE LITTLE WOODEN GOD 


29 


carved wood god, and I wanted it just to dash to 
some steamer skipper who had dashed me a case 
of fizz or something. You know?” 

“Yes, I see. Go on. How did you get hold of it?” 

“Why, just went and tackled the passenger-boy 
and dashed him a case of gin ; and when he sobered 
up again, where was the ju-ju? I got it ashore 
right enough to the pilotage here in Banana, and 
for the next two weeks thought it was my ju-ju 
without further palaver. 

“Then up comes a nigger to explain. The passen- 
ger-boy who had guzzled the gin was no end of a 
big duke — witch-doctor, and all that, with a record 
of about three hundred murders to his tally — and he 
had the cheek to send a blooming ambassador to 
say things, and threaten, to try and get the ju-ju 
back. Of course, if the original sportsman had come 
himself to make his ugly remarks, I’d soon have 
stopped his fun. That’s the best of the Congo Free 
State. If a nigger down here is awkward, you can 
always get him shipped off as a slave — soldier, that 
is — to the upper river, and take darned good care 
he never comes back again. And, as a point of fact, 
I did tip a word to the commandant here and get 
that particular ambassador packed off out of harm’s 
way. But that did no special good. Before a week 
was through up came another chap to tackle me. 
He spoke flatly about pains and penalties if I didn’t 
give the thing up ; and he offered money — or rather 
ivory, two fine tusks of it, worth a matter of 
twenty pounds, as a ransom— and then I began to 
open my eyes.” 

“Twenty pounds for that ju-ju! Why, I’ve picked 
up many a one better carved for a shilling.” 

“Well, this bally thing has value; there’s no doubt 


30 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


about that. But where the value comes in, I can’t 
make out. I’ve overhauled it times and again, 
but can’t see it’s anything beyond the ordinary. 
However, if a nigger of his own free will offered 
two big tusks to get the thing back, it stands to 
reason it’s worth a precious sight more than that. 
So when the second ambassador came, I put the 
price down at a quarter of a ton of ivory, and wait- 
ed to get it.” 

Kettle whistled. ‘‘You know how to put on the 
value,” he said. “That’s getting on for £400 with 
ivory at its present rates.” 

“I was badly in want of money when I set the 
figure. My poor little wife in Bradford had sent 
me a letter by the last Antwerp mail saying how 
hard-up she was, and the way she wrote regularly 
touched me.” 

“I don’t like it,” Kettle snapped. 

“What, my being keen about the money?” 

“No; your having such a deuce of a lot of wives.” 

“But I am so very domesticated,” said Nilssen. 
“You don’t appreciate how domesticated I am. 
I can’t live as a bachelor anywhere. I always 
like to have a dear little wife and a nice little 
home to go to in whatever town I may be 
quartered. But it’s a great expense to keep them 
all provided for. And besides, the law of most 
countries is so narrow-minded. One has to be so 
careful.” 

Kettle wished to state his views on bigamy with 
clearness and point, but when he cast his eyes over 
the frail wreck of a man in the Madeira chair, he 
forebore. It would not take very much of a jar, to 
send Captain Nilssen away from this world to the 
Place of Reckoning which lay beyond. And so with 


THE LITTLE WOODEN GOD 31 

a gulp he said instead: “You’re sure it’s deliberate 
poisoning?” 

“Quite. The nigger who came here last about 
the business promised to set ju-ju on me, and I told 
him to do it and be hanged to him. He was as 
good as his word. I began to be bad the very 
next day.” 

“How’s it managed?” 

“Don’t know. They have ways of doing these 
things in Africa which we white men can’t follow.” 

“Suspect any one?” 

“No. And if you’re hinting at Mrs. Nilssen in the 
pilotage there, she’s as staunch as you are, bless 
her dusky skin. Besides, what little chop I’ve man- 
aged to swallow since I’ve been bad, I’ve always 
got out of fresh unopened tins myself.” 

“Ah,” said Kettle; “I fancied some one had been 
mixing up finely powdered glass in your chop. It’s 
an old trick, and you don’t twig it till the doctors 
cut you up after you’re dead.” 

“As if I wasn’t up to a kid’s game like that!” 
said the sick man with feeble contempt. “No, this 
is regular ju-ju work, and it’s beyond the Belgian 
doctor here, and it’s beyond all other white men. 
There’s only one cure, and that’s to be got at the 
place where the poisoning palaver was worked from.” 

“And where’s that?” 

Captain Nilssen nodded down the narrow slip of 
sand, and mangroves, and nut palms, on which the 
settlement of Banana is built, and gazed with his 
sunken eyes at the smooth, green slopes of Africa 
beyond. “Dem village he lib for bush,” he said. 

“Up country village, eh? They’re a nice lot in at 
the back there, according to accounts. But can’t 
you arrange it by your friend the ambassador?” 


32 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


“He’s not the kind of fool to come back. He’s 
man enough to know he’d get pretty well dropped 
on if I could get him in my reach again.” 

“Then tell the authorities here, and get some 
troops sent up.” 

“What’ d be the good of that? They might go, or 
they mightn’t. If they did, they’d do a lot of shoot- 
ing, collect a lot of niggers’ ears, steal what there 
was to pick up, and then come back. But would 
they get what I want out of the witch-doctor? 
Not much. They’d never so much as see the beggar. 
He’d take far too big care of his mangy hide. He 
wouldn’t stop for fighting-palaver. He’d be off for 
bush, one-time. No, Kettle, if I’m to get well, some 
white man will have to go up by his lonesome for 
me, and square that witch-doctor by some trick of 
the tongue.” 

“Which is another way of saying you want me to 
risk my skin to get you your prescription?” 

“But, my lad, I won’t ask you to go for nothing. 
I don’t suppose you are out here on the Congo 
just for your health. You’ve said you’ve got a wife 
at home, and I make no doubt you’re as fond of 
her and as eager to provide for her as I am for an^^ 
of mine. Well and good. Here’s an offer. Get me 
cured, and I’ll dash you the ju-ju to make what 
you can out of it.” 

Kettle stretched out his fingers. “Right,” he said. 
“We’ll trade on that.” And the pair of them shook 
hands over the bargain. 

It was obvious, if the thing was to be done at 
all, it must be set about quickly. Nilssen was an 
utter wreck. Prolonged residence in this pestilential 
Congo had sapped his constitution; the poison was 


THE LITTLE WOODEN GOD 


33 


constantly eating at him ; and he must either get 
relief in a very short time, or give up the fight and 
die. So that same afternoon saw Kettle journeying 
in a dug-out canoe over the beer-colored waters 
of the river, up stream, toward the witch-doctor’s 
village. 

Two savages (one of them suffering from a bad 
attack of yaws) propelled the craft from her forward 
part in erratic zig-zags; amidships sat Captain 
Kettle in a Madeira chair under a green-lined white 
umbrella ; and behind him squatted his personal at- 
tendant, a Krooboy, bearing the fine old Coast 
name of Brass Pan. The crushed marigold smell 
from the river closed them in, and the banks crept 
by in slow procession. 

The main channels of the Congo Kettle knew 
with a pilot’s knowledge; but the canoe-men soon 
left these, and crept ofif into winding backwaters, 
with wire-rooted mangroves sprawling over the mud 
on their banks, and strange whispering beast-noises 
coming from behind the thickets of tropical greenery. 
The sun had slanted slow; ceibas and silk-cotton 
woods threw a shade dark almost as twilight; 
but the air was full of breathless heat, and Kettle’s 
white drill clothes hung upon him clammy and 
damp. Behind him, in the stern of the canoe. Brass 
Pan scratched himself plaintively. 

Dark fell and the dug-out was made fast to a 
mangrove root. The Africans covered their heads 
to ward off ghosts, and snored on the damp floor 
of the canoe. Kettle took quinine and dozed in the 
Madeira chair. Mists closed round them, white 
with damp, earthy-smelling with malaria. Then 
gleams of morning stole over the trees and made the 
mists visible, and Kettle woke with a seaman’s 
3 


34 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


promptitude. He roused Brass Pan, and Brass 
Pan roused the canoe-men, and the voyage pro- 
ceeded. 

Through more silent waterways the clumsy dug- 
out made her passage, where alligators basked on 
the mudbanks and sometimes swam up from below 
and nuzzled the sides of the boat, and where velvety 
black butterflies fluttered in dancing swarms across 
the shafts of sunlight; and at last her nose was 
driven on to a bed of slime, and Kettle was invited 
to “lib for beach.’’ 

Brass Pan stepped dutifully over the mud, and 
Captain Kettle mounted his back and rode to dry 
ground without as much as splashing the pipeclay 
on his dainty canvas shoes. A bush path opened 
out ahead of them, winding, narrow, uneven, and 
the man with the yaws went ahead and gave a lead. 

As a result of exposure to the night mists of the 
river. Captain Kettle had an attack of fever on 
him which made him shake with cold and bum 
with heat alternately. His head was splitting, 
and his skin felt as though it had been made origi- 
nally to suit a small boy, and had been stretched to 
near bursting-point to serve its present wearer. 

In the forest, the path was a mere tunnel amongst 
solid blocks of wood and greenery; in the open 
beyond, it was a slim alley between grass-blades 
eight feet high; and the only air which nourished 
them as they marched was hot enough to scorch 
the lungs as it was inhaled. And if in addition to 
all this, it be remembered that the savages he was 
going to visit were practising cannibals, were no- 
toriously treacherous, were violently hostile to all 
whites (on account of many cruelties bestowed by 
Belgians), and were especially exasperated against 


THE LITTLE WOODEN GOD 


35 


the stealer of their idol, it will be seen that from 
an ordinary point of view Captain Kettle’s mission 
was far from appetizing. 

The little sailor, however, earned himself as jaunt- 
ily as though he were stepping out along a mere 
pleasure parade, and hummed an air as he marched. 
In ordinary moments I think his nature might be 
described as almost melancholy; it took times of 
stress like these to thoroughly brighten him. 

The path wound, as all native paths do wind, 
like some erratic snake amongst the grasses, reaching 
its point with a vast disregard for distance expended 
on the way. It led, with a scramble, down the 
sides of ravines ; it drew its followers up steep rock- 
faces that were baked almost to cooking heat by 
the sun; and finally, it broke up into fan-shape 
amongst decrepit banana groves, and presently 
ended amongst a squalid collection of grass and 
wattle huts which formed the village. 

Dogs announced the arrival to the natives, and 
from out of the houses bolted men, women, and 
children, who dived out of sight in the surrounding 
patches of bush. 

The man with the yaws explained : “Dem Belgians 
make war-palaver often. People plenty much fright- 
ened. People think we lib for here on war-palaver.” 

“Silly idiots!” said Captain Kettle. “Hullo, by 
fames! here’s a white man coming out of that 
chimbeque!” 

“He God-man. Lib for here on gin-palaver.” 

“Trading missionary, is he? Bad breed that. And 
the worst of it is, if there’s trouble, he’ll hold up 
his cloth, and I can’t hit him.” He advanced 
toward the white man, and touched his helmet. 
“Bon yo«r, Monsieur.” 


36 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


“Howdy?” said the missionary. “I’m as English 
as yourself— or rather Amurriean. Know you quite 
well by sight, Captain. Seen you on the steamers 
when I was stationed at our headquarters in Boma. 
What might you be up here for?” 

“I’ve a bit of a job on hand for Captain Nilssen 
of Banana.” 

“Old Cappie Nilssen? Know him quite well. Mar- 
ried him to that Bengala wife of his, the silly old 
fool. Well, captain, come right into my chimbeque, 
and chop.” 

“I’ll have some quinine with you, and a cocktail. 
Chop doesn’t tempt me just now. I’ve a dose of 
fever on hand.” 

“Got to expect that here, anyway,” said the 
missionary. “I haven’t had fever for three days 
now, but I’m due for another dose to-morrow after- 
noon. Fever’s quite regular with me. It’s a good 
thing that, because I can fit in my business accord- 
ingly.” 

“I suppose the people at home think you carry the 
Glad Tidings only?” 

“The people at home are impracticable fools, and 
I guess when I was ’way back in Boston I was no 
small piece of a fool too. I was sent out here ’long 
with a lot more tenderfeet to plant beans for our 
own support, and to spread the gospel for the glory 
of America. Well, the other tenderfeet are planted, 
and I’m the only one that’s got any kick left. The 
beans wouldn’t grow, and there was no sort of 
living to be got out of spreading a gospel which 
nobody seemed to want. So I had to start in and 
hoe a new row for myself.” 

“Set up as a trader, that is?” 

“You bet. It’s mostly grist that comes to me: 


THE LITTLE WOODEN GOD 


37 


palin-oil, rubber, kernels, and ivory. Timber I have- 
n’t got the capital to tackle, and I must say the 
ivory’s more to figure about than finger. But 
I’ve got the best connection of any trader in gin 
and guns and cloth in this section, and in another 
year I’ll have made enough of a pile to go home, 
and I guess there are congregations in Boston that’ll 
just jump at having a returned Congo missionary 
as their minister.” 

‘T should draw the line at that, myself,” said 
Kettle stiffly. 

“Dare say. You’re a Britisher, and therefore 
you’re a bit narrow-minded. We’re a vury adaptable 
nation, we Amurricans. Say, though, you haven’t 
told me what you’re up here for yet? I guess you 
haven’t come just in search of health?” 

Captain Kettle reflected. His gorge rose at this 
man, but the fellow seemed to have some sort of 
authority in the village, and probably he could 
settle the question of Nilssen’s ailment with a dozen 
words. So he swallowed his personal resentment, 
and, as civilly as he could, told the complete tale as 
Nilssen had given it to him. 

The trader missionary’s face grew crafty as he 
listened. “Look here, you want that old sinner 
Nilssen cured?” 

“That’s what I came here for.” 

“Well, then, give me the ju-ju, and I’ll fix it up for 
you.” 

“The ju-ju’s to be my fee,” said Kettle. “I sup- 
pose you know something about it? You’re not 
the kind of man to go in for collecting valueless 
curiosities.” 

“Nop. I’m here on the make, and I guess you’re 
about the same. But I wouldn’t be in your shoes 


38 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


if the people in the village get to know'^ that you’ve 
a finger in looting their idol.” 

“Why?” 

“Oh, 3"ou’ll die rather painfully, that’s all. Better 
give the thing up. Captain, and let me take over the 
eontract for yon. It’s a bit above your weight.” 

Kettle’s faee grew grim. “Is it?” he said. “Think 
I’m going to baek down for a tribe of nasty, stink- 
ing, man-eating niggers? Not much.” 

“Well,” said the missionary, “don’t get ruffled. 
I’ve got no use for quarrelling. Go your way, and 
if things turn out ugly don’t say I didn’t give you 
the straight cinch, as one white man to another in 
a savage country. And now, it’s about my usual 
time for siesta.” 

“Right,” said Kettle. “I’ll siesta too. My fever’s 
gone now, and I’m feeling pretty rocky and mean. 
Sleep’s a grand pick-me-up.” 

They took off their coats, and lay down then 
under filmy mosquito bars, and presently sleep came 
to them. Indeed, to Kettle came so dead an un- 
consciousness that he afterward had a suspicion 
(though it was beyond proof) that some drug had 
been mixed with his drink. He was a man who at 
all times was extraordinarily watchful and alert. 
Often and often during his professional life his bare 
existence had depended on the faculty for scenting 
danger from behind the curtain of sleep; and his 
senses in this direction were so abnormally developed 
as to verge at times on the uncanny. Cat-like is a 
poor word to describe his powers of vigilance. 

But there is no doubt that in this case his alert- 
ness was dulled. The fatigue of the march, his dose 
of fever, his previous night of wakefulness in the 
canoe, all combined to undermine his guard; and, 


THE LITTLE WOODEN GOD 


39 


moreover, the attack of the savages was stealthy in 
the extreme. • Like ghosts, they must have crept 
back from the bush to reconnoitre their village; 
like daylight ghosts, they must have surrounded the 
trader missionary’s hut and peered at the sleeping 
man between the bamboos of the wall, and then 
made their entrance; and it must have been with 
the quickness of wild beasts that they made their 
spring. 

Kettle woke on the instant that he was touched, 
and started to struggle for his life, as indeed he had 
struggled many a time before. But the numbers of 
the blacks put effective resistance out of the question. 
Four of them pressed down each arm on to the 
bed, four each leg, three pressed on his head. Their 
animal faces champed and gibbered at him ; the 
animal smell of them made him splutter and cough. 

Captain Kettle was not a man who often sought 
help from others; he was used to playing a lone- 
handed fight against a mob ; but the suddenness of 
the attack, the loneliness of his surroundings, and 
the dejection due to his recent dose of fever, for the 
first instant almost unnerved him, and on the first 
alarm he sang out lustily for the missionary’s help. 
There was no answer. With a jerk he turned his 
head, and saw that the other bed was empty. The 
man had left the hut. 

For a time the captive did not actively resist 
further. In a climate like that of the Congo one’s 
store of physical strength is limited, and he did not 
wish to earn unnecessarily severe bonds by wasting 
it. As it was, he was tied up cruelly enough with 
grass rope, and then taken from the hut and flung 
down under the blazing sunshine outside. 

Presently a fantastic form danced up from behind 


40 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


one of the huts, daubed with colored cla3"s, figged 
out with a thousand tawdry charms, and cinctured 
round the middle by a girdle of half-picked bones. 
He wafted an evil odor before him as he advanced, 
and he came up and stood with one foot on Kettle’s 
breast in the attitude of a conqueror. 

This was the witch-doctor, a creature who held 
power of life and death over all the village, whom 
the villagers suffered to test them with poison, to 
put them to unnamable tortures, to rob them as he 
pleased, — to be, in fact, a kind of insane autocrat 
working any whim that seized him freely in their 
midst. The witch-doctor’s power of late had suffered. 
The white man Nilssen had “put bigger ju-ju” on 
him, and under its influence had despoiled him of 
valuable property. Now was his moment of counter 
triumph. The witch-doctor stated that he brought 
this other white man to the village by the power of 
his spells; and the villagers believed him. There 
was the white man lying on the ground before them 
to prove it. 

Remained next to see what the witch-doctor would 
do with his captive. 

The man himself was evidently at a loss, and 
talked, and danced, and screamed, and foamed, 
merely to gain time. He spoke nothing but Fiote, 
and of that tongue Kettle knew barely a single 
word. But presently the canoe-man with the yaws 
was dragged up, and, in his own phrase, was bidden 
to act as “linguister.” 

“He say,” translated the man with the yaws, 
“if dem big ju-ju lib back for here, he let you go.” 

“And if not?” 

The interpreter put a question, and the witch- 
doctor screamed out a long reply, and then stooped 





HE CAME AND STOOD WITH ONE FOOT ON KETTLE S HKEAST IN THE 

attitude of a CONQUEROR. 




40 ' 






THE TITTLE WOODEN GOD 


41 


and felt the captive over with his fingers, as men 
feel cattle at a fair. 

“Well?” said Kettle impatiently; “if he doesn’t 
get back the wooden god, let’s hear what the game 
is next?” 

“Me no sabbey. He say you too small and thin 
for chop.” 

Captain Kettle’s pale cheeks flushed, Curiously 
enough it never occurred to him to be grateful for 
this escape from a cannibal dinner-table. But his 
smallness was a constant sore to him, and he bit- 
terly resented any allusion to it. 

“Tell that stinking scarecrow I’ll wring his neck 
for him before I’m quit of this village.” 

“Me no fit,” said the linguister candidly. “He kill 
me now if I say that, same’s he kill you soon.” 

“Oh, he’s going to kill me, is he?” 

The interpreter nodded emphatically. “Or getdem 
big ju-ju,” he added. 

“Ask him how Cappie Nilssen can be cured.” 

The man with the yaws put the question timidly 
enough, and the witch-doctor burst into a great 
guffaw of laughter. Then after a preliminary dance, 
he took off a little packet of leopard skin, which 
hung amongst his other charms, and stuffed it deep 
inside Kettle’s shirt. 

The interpreter explained: “Him say he put ju-ju 
on Cappie Nilssen, and can take it off all-e-same 
easy. Him say you give Cappie Nilssen dis new 
ju-ju for chop, an’ he live for well one-time.” 

“He doesn’t make much trouble about giving it 
me, anyway,” Kettle commented. “Looks as if he 
felt pretty sure he’d get that idol, or else take the 
change out of my skin.” But, all the same, when 
the question was put to him again as to whether 


42 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


he would surrender the image, he flatly refused. 
There was a eertain pride about Kettle which for- 
bade him to make concessionary treaties with an 
inferior race. 

So forthwith, having got this final refusal, the 
blacks took him up again, and under the witch- 
doctor’s lead carried him well beyond the outskirts 
of the village. There was a cleared space here, and 
on the bare, baked earth they laid him down under 
the full glare of the tropical sunshine. For a minute 
or so they busied themselves with driving four stout 
stakes into the ground, and then again they took 
him up, and made him fast by wrists and ankles, 
spread-eagle fashion, to the stakes. 

At first he was free to turn his head, and with a 
chill of horror he saw he was not the first to be 
stretched out in that clearing. There were three 
other sets of stakes, and framed in each was a hu- 
man skeleton, picked clean. With a shiver he re- 
membered travellers’ tales on the steamers of how 
these things were done. But then the blacks put 
down other stakes so as to confine his head in one 
position, and were proceeding to prop open his 
mouth with a piece of wood, when suddenly there 
seemed to be a hitch in the proceedings. 

The witch-doctor asked for honey — Kettle recog- 
nized the native word — and none was forthcoming. 
Without honey they could not go on, and the cap- 
tive knew why. One man was going off to fetch it, 
but then news was brought that the Krooboy Brass 
Pan had been caught, and the whole gang of them 
went off helter-skelter toward the village — and again 
Kettle knew the reason for their haste. 

So there he was left alone for the time being 
with his thoughts, lashed up beyond all chance of 


THE LITTLE WOODEN GOD 


43 


escape, scorched by an intolerable sun, bitten and 
gnawed by countless swarms of insects, without 
chance of sweeping them awa3^ But this was ease 
compared with what was to follow. He knew the 
fate for which he was apportioned, a common fate 
amongst the Congo cannibals. His jaws would be 
propped open, a train of honey would be led from 
his mouth to a hill of driver ants close bv, and the 
savage insects would come up and eat him piece- 
meal while he still lived. 

He had seen driver ants attack a house before, 
swamp fires lit in their path by sheer weight of num- 
bers, put the inhabitants to flight, and eat every- 
thing that remained. And here, in this clearing, if he 
wanted further proof of their power, were the three 
picked skeletons l^dng stretched out to their stakes. 

There are not many men who could have pre- 
served their reason under monstrous circumstances 
such as these, and I take it that there is no man 
living who dare up and say that he would not be 
abominably frightened were he to find himself in 
such a plight. In these papers I have endeavored 
to show Captain Owen Kettle as a brave man, 
indeed the bravest I ever knew ; but I do not think 
even he would blame me if I said he was badlj^ 
scared then. 

He heard noises from the village which he could 
not see beyond the grass. He heard poor Brass 
Pan’s death-shriek; he heard all the noises that 
followed, and knew their meaning, and knew that he 
was earning a respite thereby; he even heard from 
over the low hills the hoot of a steamer’s siren as 
she did her business on the yellow waters of the 
Congo, in crow flight perhaps not a good rifle-shot 
from where he lay stretched. 


44 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


It seemed like a fantastic dream to be assured in 
this way that there were white men, civilized white 
men, men who could read books and enjoy poetry, 
sitting about swearing and drinking cocktails under 
a decent steamer’s awnings close by this barbaric 
scene of savagery. And yet it was no dream. The 
flies that crept into his nose and his mouth and his 
eye-sockets, and bit him through his clothing, and 
the hateful sounds from the village assured him of 
all its reality. 

The blazing day burnt itself to a close, and night 
came hard upon its heels, still baking and breathless. 
The insects bit worse than ever, and once or twice 
Kettle fancied he felt the jaws of a driver ant in 
his flesh, and wondered if news would be carried to 
the horde in the ant-hill, which would bring them 
out to devour their prey without the train of honey 
being laid to lure them. Moreover, fever had come 
on him again, and with one thing and another it 
was only by a constant effort of will that he pre- 
vented himself from giving way and raving aloud 
in delirium. 

It was under these circumstances, then, that the 
missionary came to him again, and once more put 
in a bid for the ju-ju which lay at the pilotage. 
Kettle roundly accused the man of having betrayed 
him, and the fellow did not deny it with any hope 
of being believed. He had got to get his pile some- 
how, so he said: the ju-ju had value, and if he could 
not get hold of it one way, he had to work it an- 
other. And finally, would Kettle surrender it then, 
or did he want any more discomfort. 

Now I think it is not to the little sailor’s discredit 
to confess that he surrendered without terms forth- 


THE LITTLE WOODEN GOD 


45 


with. “The thing’s yours for when you like to 
fetch it,” he snapped out ungraciously enough, and 
the missionary at once stooped and cut the grass 
ropes, and set to chafing his wrists and ankles. 
“And now,’’ he said, “clear out for your canoe at 
the river-side for all you’re worth. Captain. There’s 
a big full moon, and you can’t miss the way.’’ 

“Wait a bit,’’ said Kettle. “I’m remembering that 
I had an errand here. Can you give me the right 
physic to pull Captain Nilssen round?’’ 

“You have it in that leopard-skin parcel inside 
your shirt. I saw the witch-doctor give it you.’’ 

“Oh! you were looking on, were you?’’ 

“Yes.” 

“By James! I’ve a big mind to leave my marks 
on you, you swine!’’ 

The trader missionary whipped out a revolver. 
“Guess I’m heeled, sonny. You’d better go slow. 
You’d ” 

There was a rush, a dodge, a scufile, a bullet 
whistling harmlessly up into the purple night, and 
that revolver was Captain Kettle’s. 

“The cartridges you have in your pocket.” 

“I’ve only three. Here they are, confound you! 
Now, what are you going to do next? You’ve 
waked the village. You’ll have them down on you 
in another moment. Run, you fool, or they’ll have 
you yet.” 

“Will they?” said Kettle. “Well, if you want to 
know, I’ve got poor old Brass Pan to square up for 
yet. I liked that boy.” And with that, he set off 
running down a path between the walls of grasses. 

A negro met him in the narrow cut, yelled with 
surprise, and turned. He dropped a spear as he 
turned, and Kettle picked it up and drove the blade 


46 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


between his shoulder-blades as he ran. Then on 
through the village he raged like a man demented. 
With what weapons he fought he never afterward 
remembered. He slew with whatever came to his 
hand. The villagers, wakened up from their torpid 
sleep, rushed from the grass and wattle houses on 
every hand. Kettle in his Berserk rage charged them 
whenever they made a stand, till at last all fled 
from him as though he were more than human. 

Bodies lay upon the ground staring up at the 
moon; but there were no living creatures left, 
though the little sailor, with bared teeth and pant- 
ing breath, stood there waiting for them. No; he 
had cleared the place, and only one other piece of 
retribution lay in his power. The embers of a great 
fire smouldered in the middle of the clearing, and 
with a shudder (as he remembered its purpose) he 
shovelled up great handfuls of the glowing charcoal 
and sowed it broadcast on the dry grass roofs of 
the chimbeques. The little crackling flames leaped 
up at once; they spread with the quickness of a 
gunpowder train; and in less than a minute a 
great cataract of fire was roaring high into the 
night. 

Then, and not till then, did Captain Kettle think 
of his own retreat. He put the three remaining 
cartridges into the empty chambers of his revolver, 
and set off at a jog-trot down the winding path by 
which he had come up from the river. 

His head was throbbing then, and the stars and 
the grasses swam before his eyes. The excitement 
of the fight had died away— the ills of the place 
gripped every fibre of his body. Had the natives 
ambushed him along the path, I do not think he 
could possibly have avoided them. But those na- 


THE LITTLE WOODEN GOD 


47 


tives had had their lesson, and they did not care to 
tamper with Kettle’s ju-ju again. And so he was 
allowed to go on undisturbed, and somehow or 
other he got down to the river-bank and the canoe. 

He did not do the land journey at any astonishing 
pace. Indeed, it is a wonder he ever got over it at 
all. More than once he sank down half uncon- 
scious in the path, and up all the steeper slopes he 
had to crawl animal fashion on all-fours. But by 
daybreak he got to the canoe, and pushed her off, 
and by a marvellous streak of luck lost his way in 
the inner channels, and wandered out on to the 
broad Congo beyond. 

I say this was a streak of luck, because by this 
time consciousness had entirely left him, and on the 
inner channels he would merely have died, and been 
eaten by alligators, whereas, as it was, he got 
picked up by a State launch, and taken down to the 
pilotage at Banana. 

It was Mrs. Nilssen who tediously nursed him 
back to health. Kettle had always been courteous 
to Mrs. Nilssen, even though she was as black and 
polished as a patent leather boot; and Mrs. Nilssen 
appreciated Captain Owen Kettle accordingly. 

With Captain Nilssen, pilot of the lower Congo, 
Kettle had one especially interesting talk during 
his convalescence. “You may as well take that 
troublesome wooden god for yourself now,” said 
Nilssen. “But, if I were you, I’d ship it home out 
of harm’s way by the next steamer.” 

“Hasn’t that missionary brute sent for it yet?” 

Captain Nilssen evaded the question. “I’ll never 
forget what you’ve done for me, my lad. When you 
were brought in here after they picked you up, you 
looked fit to peg out one-time, but the only sane 


48 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


thing you could do was to waggle out a little 
leopard-skin parcel, and bid me swallow the stuff 
that was inside. You’d started out to get me that 
physic, and, by gum, you weren’t happy till I got 
it down my neck.” 

“Well, you look fit enough now.” 

“Never better.” 

“But about the missionary brute?” 

“Well, my lad, I suppose you’re well enough to 
be told now. He’s got his trading cut short for 
good. That nigger with the yaws who paddled you 
up brought down the news. The beggars up there 
chopped him, and I’m sure I hope he didn’t give 
them indigestion.” 

“My holy James!” 

“Solid. His missionary friends here have written 
home a letter to Boston which would have done you 
good to see. According to them, the man’s a blessed 
martyr, nothing more or less. The gin and the 
guns are left clean out of the tale ; and will Boston 
please send out some more subscriptions, one-time? 
You’ll see they’ll stick up a stained-glass window 
to that joker in Boston, and he’ll stand up there 
with a halo round his head as big as a frying-pan. 
And, oh! won’t his friends out here be resigned to 
his loss when the subscriptions begin to hop in 
from over the water.” 

“Well, there’s been a lot of trouble over a trum- 
pery wooden idol. I fancy we’d better burn it out 
of harm’s way.” 

“Not mueh,” said Nilssen with a sigh. “I’ve 
found out where the value comes in, and as you’ve 
earned them fairly and squarely, the dividends are 
yours to stick to. One of those looking-glass eyes 
was loose, and I picked it out. There was a bit of 


THE LITTLE WOODEN GOD 


49 


green glass behind. I picked out the other e3^e, and 
there was a bit of green glass at the back of that 
too.” 

“Oh, the niggers’ll use anything for ju-ju.” 

“Wait a bit. I’d got my notions as to what that 
green glass was, and so I toted them in my pocket 
up and down the river and asked every man who 
was likely to know a jewel what he thought. They 
aren’t green glass at all. They’re emeralds. They’re 
come from the Lord knows where, but that doesn’t 
matter. They’re worth fifty pounds apiece at the 
very lowest, and they’re yours, my lad, to do what 
you like with.” 

Captain Kettle lay back on his pillow and smiled 
complacently. “That money’ll just set up my Missis 
nicely in a lodging-house. Now I can go on with 
my work here, and know that whatever happens 
she and the kids are provided for.” 

“Eh, well,” said Nilssen with a sigh, “she’ll be 
nicely fixed up now. I wish I could make provision 
like that for my old women.” 

4 


CHAPTER III. 


A QUICK WAY WITH REBELS. 

Another bullet came silently up out of the dis- 
tance, and the nigger second engineer of the launch 
gave a queer little whimper and fell down £opy and 
lay with his flat nose nuzzling the still warm boiler. 
A hole, which showed up red and angry against the 
black wool just underneath his grass cap, made the 
diagnosis of his injury an easy matter. 

The noise of the shot came to them quite a long 
time afterward, when the little puflf of smoke which 
had spirted up from the distant sandbank had 
already begun to thin under the sunshine; but it 
was that gun-crack, and not the sight of the dead 
engineer, which gave the working negroes their 
final scare. With loud children’s cries, and queer 
dodgings of fear, they pitched down their working 
tools, and fled to where the other black soldiers 
and passengers were lying on the iron floor-plates 
of the launch, in security below her water-line. 

The Belgian Commandant, from his shelter at the 
other side of the boiler, swore volubly, and Clay, 
the English doctor, laughed and twanged out a 
music-hall tune on his banjo. Kettle, intent on 
getting his vessel once more under command, was 
for driving the negro crew back to their work by 
the simple methods peculiar to the British merchant 
officer. But this Commandant Balliot forbade, and, 


A QUICK WAY WITH REBELS 


51 


as he was Kettle’s superior in the Congo Free State 
service, that small mariner had (very much against 
his grain) to obey. 

“We shall have these fellows rebelling next,” said 
the Commandant, “if you push them too hard; and 
if they join the rest, where shall we be?” 

“There are a thousand of your troops in the 
mutiny already, according to your tally,” said 
Kettle stiffly, “and I don’t see that if this hundred 
joined them it would make much difference to us, 
one way or the other. Besides,” he added, almost 
persuasively, “if I had the handling of them they 
would not join the others. They would stay here 
and do as they were told.” 

“Captain Kettle,” snapped the Commandant, 
“3^ou have heard my orders. If I have any more of 
this hectoring spirit from you, I shall report your 
conduct when we get back to Stanley Pool.” 

“You may report till you’re black in the face,” 
said Kettle truculently ; “but if you don’t put a bit 
more backbone into things, you’ll do it as a ghost 
and not as a live man. Look at your record up to 
date. You come up here at the head of a fine expe- 
dition; you set your soldiers to squeeze the tribes 
for rubber and ivory; they don’t bring in enough 
niggers’ ears to show that they’ve used their car- 
tridges successfully, and so you shoot them down in 
batches; and then you aren’t man enough to keep 
your grip on them, but when they’ve had enough 
of 3^our treatment, they just start in and rebel.” 

“One man can’t fight a thousand.” 

“You can’t, anyway. If the Doc and I had turned 
up with this launch half an hour later, your excel- 
lent troops would have knocked you on the head 
and chopped you afterward. But I’d like to remind 


52 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


you that we ran in-shore and took you away in 
spite of their teeth.” 

“You are ver^'' brave,” sneered the Commandant, 
“you and Monsieur le Docteur.” 

“Well, you see,” said Kettle with cheerful insult, 
“our grandfathers didn’t run away at Waterloo, and 
that gives us something to go upon.” 

“I put you under arrest,” screamed the Belgian. 
“I will have satisfaction for this later. I ” 

“Steady on,” said Clay, with a yawn. He put 
down his banjo, stretched, and stood up. Behind 
him the bullets pattered merrily against the iron 
plating. “Why on earth do you two keep on nag- 
ging? Look at me — I’m half drunk as usual, and 
I’m as happy as a lord. Take a peg, each of you, 
and sweeten your tempers.” 

They glared at him from each side. 

“Now it’s not the least use either of you two 
trying to quarrel with me. We might as well all be 
friends together for the little time we’ve got. We’ve 
a good deal in common: we’re all bad eggs, and 
we’re none of us fit for our billets. Monsieur le 
Commandant, you were a sous-officier in Belgium 
who made Brussels too hot to hold you ; you come 
out here, and you’re sent to govern a district 
the size of Russia, which is a lot beyond your 
weight. 

“Friend Kettle, you put a steamer on the ground 
in the lower Congo; you probably had a bad record 
elsewhere, or you’d never have drifted to the Congo 
service at all ; and now you’re up here on the Haut 
Congo skippering a rubbishy fourpenny stern- wheel 
launch, which of course is a lot beneath your pre- 
cious dignity. 

“And I— well, I once had a practice at home; and 


A QUICK WAY WITH REBELS 


53 


got into a row over a woman; and when the row 
was through, well, where was the praetiee? I eame 
out here because no one will look at me in any 
other quarter of the globe. I get wretched pa3^, and 
I do as little as I possibly can for it. I’m half-seas 
over every day of the week, and I’m liked because 
I can play the banjo.” 

“I don’t see what good you’re getting by abuse 
like this,” said Kettle. 

^‘I’m trying to make you both forget your silly 
Haggling. We may just as well be cheerful for the 
bit of time we’ve got.” 

“Bit of time !” 

“Well, it won’t be much anyway. Here’s the 
launch with a hole shot in her boiler, and no steam, 
drifted hard and fast on to a sandbank. On another 
bank, eight hundred yards away, are half a regi- 
ment of rebel troops with plenty of good rifles and 
plenty of cartridges, browning us for all they’re 
worth. Their friends are off up stream to collect 
canoes from those villages which have been raided, 
and canoes they’ll get — likewise help from the recent- 
ly raided. When dark comes, away they’ll attack 
us, and personally, I mean to see it out fighting, 
and they’ll probably chop me afterward, and the 
odds are I give some of them bad dyspepsia. About 
that I don’t care two pins. But I don’t intend to 
be caught alive. That means torture, and no error 
about it.” He shivered. “I’ve seen their subjects 
after they’ve played their torture games on them. 
My aunt, but they were a beastly sight.” 

The Commandant shivered also. He, too, knew 
what torture from the hands of those savage Cen- 
tral African blacks meant. 

“I .should blow up the launch with every soul on 


54 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


board of her,” he said, “if I thought there was any 
chance of their boarding with canoes.” 

“Well, you can bet your life they’ll try it,” said 
Kettle, “if we stay here.” 

“But how can we move? We can’t make steam. 
And if we do push off this bank, we shall drift on 
to the next bank down stream.” 

“That’s your idea,” said Kettle. “Haven’t you got 
a better?” 

“You must not speak to me like that,” said Bal- 
liot, with another little snap of dignity and passion. 
“I’m your senior officer.” 

“At the present rate you’ll continue to be that 
till about nightfall,” said Kettle unpleasantl3^, “after 
which time we shall be killed, one way or another, 
and our ranks sorted out afresh.” 

“Now, you two,” said Clay, “don’t start wrang- 
ling again.” He took a bottle out of a square green 
case, and passed it. “Here, have some gin.” 

“For God’s sake. Doc, dry up,” said Kettle, “and 
pull yourself together, and remember you’re a bloom- 
ing Englishman.” 

Clay’s thin yellow cheeks flushed. “What’s the 
use?” he said with a forced laugh. “’Tisn’t as if 
anybody wanted to see any of us home again.” 

“I’m wanted,” said Kettle, sharply, “by my wife 
and kids. I’ve got them to provide for, and I’m 
not going to shirk doing it. Let me have my own 
way, and I can get out of this mess; yes, and out 
of a dozen worse messes on beyond it. The thing’s 
nothing if only it’s tackled the right way.” 

“How shall you set about it,” asked the Com- 
mandant. 

“By giving orders, and taking mighty big care 
that everybody on this ship carries them out.” 


A QUICK WAY WITH REBELS 


Commandant Balliot rubbed at his close, scrubby" 
beard, and bared his teeth viciously. Behind him, 
from the distant sandbank, the rebel bullets rapped 
unceasingly at the launch’s iron plating. “But I 
am the senior in rank,” he repeated again. “Offi- 
cially I could not resign the command in your fa- 
vor.” 

“Yes, I know. But here’s the situation packed 
small : if you climb up, and do the large, and perch 
on your blessed rank, we shall probably see this 
day out, but we certainly sha’n’t see another in. 
You’re at the end of your string, and you can’t 
deny it.” 

“But if you’ve a suggestion to make which will 
save us, make it, and I will act.” 

“No,” snapped Kettle. “I’ll either be boss and 
carry out my schemes my own way; or else, if we 
stay on as we are, I hold my tongue, and you can 
go on and arrange the funeral.” 

“If you can get us out of this mess ” 

“I’ve said I can.” 

“Then I will let you take the command.” 

“Well and good. In the first place ” 

“Wait a minute. I resign to you temporarily ; but, 
understand, even if I wished to, I could not do this 
officially. When we get down to Leopoldville — when 
we get down to the next post even ” 

“Oh, you can collar the blooming credit,” said 
Kettle contemptuously, “when we do get clear away 
to any of your own headquarters. I’m not looking 
for gratitude either from a Belgian or from the 
Congo Free State. They don’t like Englishmen.” 

“You are not a lovable nation,” said Command- 
ant Balliot spitefully. 

“Now,” said Kettle, thrusting his fierce little face 


56 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


dose up to the other, “understand once and for all 
that I will not have England abused, neither do I 
take any more of your lip for myself. I’m Captain 
of the whole of this show now, by your making, 
and I intend to be respected as such, and hold a 
full captain’s ticket. You’ll call me ‘sir’ when you 
speak, and you’ll take orders civilly and carr3^ them 
out quick, or, by James! you’ll find your teeth 
rammed down your throat in two twinkles of a 
handspike. Savvy that?” 

The man of the weaker nation subsided. There 
was no law and order here to fall back upon. There 
was nothing but unnerving savagery and vastness. 
The sandbar where their wrecked launch lay was 
out in the middle of the Congo, perhaps eight miles 
from the park-like lands which stretched indefinitely 
beyond either bank. The great river astern of her 
glared like a mirror under the intolerable sunshine ; 
came up and swirled around her flanks in yellow, 
marigold-smelling waves; and then joined up into 
mirror shape again till the eye ached in regarding 
it. The baking sky above was desolate even of 
clouds; there was no help anywhere; and on an- 
other distant sandbank, where here and there little 
bushes of powder smoke sprouted up like a gauzy 
foliage, a horde of barbarous blacks lusted to tear 
out his life. 

In Commandant Balliot’s own heart hope was 
dead. But it seemed that this detestable Englishman 
had schemes in his head by which their lives might 
yet be saved. 

He had been given a sample of the Englishmen’s 
brazen daring already. After his troops mutinied, 
and pandemonium reigned in the village where he 
was quartered, the Englishman had steamed up 


A QUICK WAY WITH REBELS 


57 


with his paltry stern-wheel launch, and by sheer 
dash and recklessness had carried him and his last 
parcel of faithful men away in spite of the mutineers’ 
teeth. 

It was an insane thing to do, and when he had 
(as senior officer) complimented Kettle on the 
achievement, the little sailor had coldly replied that 
he was only carr3ring out his duty and earning his 
pay. And he had further mentioned that it was 
lucky for Commandant Balliot that he was a 
common, low-down Britisher, and not a fancy Bel- 
gian, or he would have thought of his own skin 
first, and steamed on comfortably down river and 
just contented himself with making a report. The 
white engineer of the launch — a drunken Scot — had, 
it seemed, been killed in the sortie, which, of course, 
was regretable; but Balliot (who disliked the Scot 
personally) had omitted to make the proper condo- 
lences; and it was at this that Kettle had taken 
umbrage and turned the nasty edge of his tongue 
outward. 

“Now,” said Captain Kettle, “enough time’s been 
wasted. We will start business at once, please. 
That boiler’s got to be mended, first.” 

“But,” said Balliot, “it’s under fire all the time.” 

“I can see that for myself,” said the little sail- 
or, “without being reminded by a subordinate 
who wasn’t asked to speak. We take things as we 
find them, and so it’s got to be mended under 
fire. Moreover, as the chief engineer of this vessel 
was killed ashore, and the second engineer was 
shot overboard, there’s others that will have to 
take rating as engine-room officers. Commandant 
Balliot, have you any mechanics amongst your 
lot?” 


58 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


“I have one man who acted as armorer-sergeant. 
He is very inefficient.” 

“He must do his best. Can you handle a drill or 
a monkey wrench, yourself?” 

“No.” 

“Then I shall find you a laborer’s job. Doc, are 
you handy with tools?” 

“Only with those of my own trade,” said Clay. 
“I’m pretty inefficient all round,” he added, with a 
shrug, “or else I shouldn’t be here.” 

“Very well,” said Kettle, “then I’ll rate myself 
chief engineer.” He got up, and walked round to 
where the black second engineer, the last man shot, 
still nuzzled the boiler plates exactly in the same 
position where he had first fallen. He lifted one of 
the man’s arms, and let it go. It jerked back again 
like a spring. 

“Well, Daddy,” he said, “you didn’t take long to 
get stiff. They shot you nice and clean, anyway. 
I guess we’ll let the river and the crocodiles bury 
you.” With a sharp heave, he jerked the rigid body 
on to the rail, and even for the short second it 
poised there the poor dead clay managed to stop 
another of those bullets which flew up in such 
deadly silence from that distant sandbank. 

“Good-b3%” said Kettle, as he toppled the corpse 
over, and it fell with a splash, stiff-limbed into the 
yellow water. He watched the body as it bobbed 
up again to the surface, and floated with the stream 
out into the silvery sunshine. “Good-by, cock3%” 
said he. “You’ve been a good nigger, and, as you 
were shot doing your duty, they’ll set you on at 
the place where 3^ou’ve gone to, one of the lightest 
jobs they’ve got suitable for a black pagan. That’s 
a theological fact. You’ll probable turn to and 


A QUICK WAY WITH REBELS 


59 


stoke; I’ll be sending you down presently another 
bateh of heathen to shovel on the fire. I’ve got a 
biggish bill against those beggars on that sand- 
bank yonder for the mischief they’ve done.” 

But it was no place there to waste much time on 
sentiment. The woodwork of the shabby little 
steamer was riddled with splintered holes ; the rusted 
iron plating was starred with gray lead-splashes; 
and every minute more bullets ploughed furrows in 
the yellow waters of the river, or whisped through 
the air overhead, or hit the vessel herself with per- 
emptory knocks. It is all very well to affect a con- 
tempt for a straggling ill-aimed fire such as this; 
but, given a long enough exposure to it, one is bound 
to be hit ; and so, if the work was to be attempted, 
the quicker it was set about the more chance there 
was of getting it finished. 

They use wood fuel on these small, ungainly 
steamers which do their business up in the savage 
heart of Africa on the waters of the Haut Congo, 
and because every man with a gun for many reasons 
feels himself to be an enemy of the Free State, the 
steamers carry their firing logs stacked in ramparts 
round their boilers and other vital parts. But wood, 
as compared with coal, is bulky stuff to carry, and 
as the stowage capacity of these stern-wheelers is 
small, they have to make frequent calls to rebunker. 

Indeed, it was for this purpose that Kettle had 
originally put in at the village where Commandant 
Balliot had his headquarters; and, as other events 
happened there which he had not calculated upon, 
he had steamed out into the broad river again 
without a chance of taking any logs on board, and, 
in fact, with his stock of fuel down very near to 
the vanishing-point. 


60 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


On this account, therefore, after the fatal shot 
into the boiler, and the subsequent disablement 
and drifting on to the sandbank, all repairing work 
had to be done under full exposure to the fire of the 
mutineers. The Central Afriean negro is a fairly 
stolid person, and as the sight of a little slaughter 
does not in the least upset his nerves, he ean stand 
bullet hail for a good long time without emotion, 
espeeially if there is no noise and bustle attached 
to it. But onee let a scare get rubbed home into 
his stupid brain, and let him get started off on the 
run, and he is an awkward person to stop. 

But Kettle did not start to hustle his blaek la- 
borers baek to work at once. He knew that there 
would be heavy mortality amongst them onee they 
were exposed to fire, and he wanted to lose as few 
of them as possible. He had got use for them 
afterward. So for long enough he worked alone, 
and the bullets spattered around him gayly. He 
hammered out a lead templet to cover the wound 
in the boiler, whieh, of eourse, as bad luek would 
have it, was situated at a plaee where three plates 
met; and then whilst Balliot’s armorer with fire 
and hammer beat out a plate of iron the exaet 
eounterpart of this, he rigged a ratehet drill and 
bored holes through the boiler’s skin to carry the 
necessary bolts. 

Clay volunteered assistanee once, but as he was 
told he would be asked for help when it was needed, 
he 'squatted down under the sheltered side of the 
boiler again, and smoked, and played more music- 
hall ditties on the banjo. Commandant Balliot 
held to a sullen silenee. He was growing to have 
a poisonous hatred for this contemptuous little 
Englishman who by sheer superiority had made 


A QUICK WAY WITH REBELS 


61 


him give up his treasured dictatorship, and he 
formed schemes for the Englishman’s discomfiture 
in the near future. 

But for the present he hoped very much that the 
man would not be killed; he recognized, with fresh 
spasms of anger every time he thought about it, 
that without Captain Kettle there would be no fu- 
ture — at any rate on this earth — ^for any of them. 

And meanwhile Captain Owen Kettle, stripped to 
shoes and trousers, sweated over his work in the 
baking heat. Twice had a bullet grazed him, once 
on the neck, and once on the round of a shoulder, 
and red stains grew over the white satin of his 
skin. The work was strange to him certainly, but 
he set about it with more than an amateur’s skill. 
All sailors have been handy with their fingers from 
time immemorial, but the modern steamer-sailor, 
during his apprenticeship as mate, has to turn his 
hand to a vast variety of trades. He is painter, 
carpenter, stevedore, crew-driver, all in one day; 
and on the next he is doctor, navigator, clerk, tailor, 
and engineer. And especially he is engineer. He 
must be able to drive winch, windlass, or crane, 
like an artist; he must have a good aptitude for 
using hand tools ; and if he can work machine tools 
also, it is so much the better for him. 

Yes, Captain Kettle put the patch on that boiler 
like a workman. He fitted his bolts, and made 
his joints; then luted the manhole and bolted that 
back in place; and then stepped down while a 
couple of negroes sluiced him with water from 
gourds, and rubbed him clean and dry with hand- 
fuls of wild cotton waste. So far, although the 
incessant hail of bullets had pitted the boiler’s skin 
in a hundred places, no second shot had found a 


62 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


Spot sufficiently soft to make a puncture. The range 
of the bombardment was long, perhaps, and though 
a bullet at seven hundred yards may, with con- 
venience, kill a man, it will not pierce seven-eighths 
boiler plate. And so, theoretically, the boiler was 
safe for the time being. 

But practically it was otherwise. The boiler was 
by no means new. It was corroded with years, 
and incapacity, and neglect, as is the custom with 
all parts of boats and machinery on the Haut 
Congo. But it had been brought up to that water- 
way by carriers at vast expense from Matadi, the 
highest steamer port on the Lower Congo, prob- 
ably costing three months and a dozen lives in 
transit, so that it was debited in the books of the 
Free State as being worth its weight in silver, and 
destined to be used on without replacement till 
it saw fit to burst. 

So Kettle knew that in places it would be not 
much thicker than stout brown paper, and was 
quite aware that if any of the pattering bullets 
investigated one of these patches, he would have to 
do his work over again. He had a strong — and, I 
think, natural — disinclination for this. He had 
come through terrific risks during the last four 
hours, and could not expect to do so a second time 
with equal immunity; his two wounds smarted; 
and (although it sounds ludicrous that such a thing 
should have weight) the dirt inseparable from such 
employment jarred against his neat and cleanly 
habits, and filled him with unutterable disgust. 

The moment, he conceived, was one for hurry. 
He told off four of the negroes as trimmers and 
stokers, and set Commandant Balliot over them to 
see that they pressed on with their work; he sent 


A QUICK WAY WITH REBELS 


63 


Clay with a huge gang of helpers overboard on the 
lee side to risk the crocodiles, and dig away the 
sand; and he himself, with a dozen paddlers, got 
into the dug-out canoe, which was his only boat, 
and set to carr3dng out a hedge and line astern. 
All of these occupations took time, and when at 
last steam had mounted to a working pressure in 
the battered gauge, and they got on board again, 
two of his canoe-men had been shot, and one of 
Clay’s party had been dragged away into deep 
water by a prowling crocodile. 

As no one else was competent. Kettle himself 
took charge of the engines, and roared his commands 
with one hand on the throttle, and the other on 
the reversing gear; Clay, for the moment, was 
quartermaster, and stood to the wheel on the upper 
deck; and Balliot, under the tuition of curses and 
revilings, drove the winch, which heaved and slacked 
on the line made fast to the kedge. 

The little steamer rolled and squeaked and coughed, 
and the paddle-wheel at her stern kicked up a com- 
post of sand and mud and yellow water that almost 
choked them with its crushed marigold scent. The 
helm swung over alternately from hard-a-starboard 
to hard-a-port; the stern-wheel ground savagely 
into the sand, first one way and then the other; 
and the gutter, which she had delved for herself 
in the bank, grew gradually wider and more deep. 
Then slowly she began to make real progress astern. 

“Now, heave on that kedge,” Kettle yelled, and 
the winch bucked and clattered under a greater 
head of steam, and the warp sung to the strain; 
and presently the little vessel slid off the bank, 
picked up her anchor, and was free to go where 
she pleased. 


64 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


“Hurrah,” cried Balliot, “we are saved. You are 
a brave man, Captain.” 

“I didn’t ask you to speak,” retorted Kettle. 
“We aren’t out of the wood by a long chalk yet.” 

“But we are out of their fire now. We shall be 
disturbed no further.” 

“No, my lad, but we’ve got a precious heap of 
disturbing to do on our own account before we’ve 
squared up for this tea party. I’m going to drop 
down stream to somewhere quiet where we can 
fill up with wood, and then I’m coming back again 
to give your late Tommies bad fits.” 

“But I don’t authorize this. I didn’t fore- 
see ” 

“Very likely not. But a fat lot I care for that. 
Fact remains that I’m skipper here, and I’m going 
to do as I think best. I’ve got it in mind that my 
two engineers and a lot of good niggers have been 
shot by those disgusting savages over yonder, and 
I don’t permit that sort of thing without making 
somebody pay a pretty steep bill for the amuse- 
ment. So I’m going down stream to wood up, 
and then we’ll come back and make them pay for 
the tea party.” 

“You are exceeding your powers. I warn you.” 

“If any of my inferiors on board ship don’t keep 
their heads shut when they aren’t spoken to,” said 
Kettle unpleasantly, “I always disarrange their 
front teeth. If I have any more palaver from you, 
you’ll get to know what it feels like.” He shouted 
up the companion way— “On top there, quartermas- 
ter?” 

“Hullo?” said Clay. 

“Keep her down river to M’barri-m’barri. That’s 
a twelve-mile run from here. There are two big cot- 


A QUICK WAY WITH REBELS 


65 


ton woods in a line which will bring you to the 
landing. You know the channel?” 

“I ought to. I’ve been up and down it times 
enough. But I guess I don’t— at least, not now.” 

“Fuddled again, are you? Then I’ll con you from 
here. You see three trees growing on that island 
bang ahead? Keep her on those.” He turned to a 
couple of stalwart niggers at his side — “Say, you 
boys, you lib for top, one-time. You take dem 
Doctor’s gin-bottle, and you throw him overboard, 
one-time. If dem Doctor he make palaver, you 
throw him overboard too. Away with 3^ou now. 
By James! we got to get discipline in this ship 
somehow, and I’m a man that can teach it. Here, 
you black swine at that furnace, go slow with those 
logs, or we won’t be able to steam her half-way.” 

He bustled about the little vessel, turning every 
soul on board to some employment or other; and 
those of the newcomers who did not know his 
wishes, and were not quick enough for his taste, 
received instruction in a manner which is under- 
stood by men all the world over, be their skins 
black, or white, or yellow. 

The process might not be very pleasant for those 
who came in contact with it, but it was very effec- 
tive for the purpose aimed at. In sea parlance Kettle 
had to “break up” some half-dozen of them before 
all hands acquiesced to his dictatorship; but they 
were quick to see there was a Man over them this 
time, and involuntarily they admired his virility 
even while they rubbed ruefully at their bumps; 
and during the times of stress that came afterward, 
none of these Africans were so smart to obey as 
those on whom their taskmaster’s hand had origi- 
nally come heaviest. 

5 


66 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


The period of instruction was short. It began 
when the little stern-wheeler slipped off the bank 
and got under weigh. It was completed satisfactor- 
ily during the twelve miles run down the river. The 
boat was steered into M’barri-m’barri creek, made 
hastily fast to trees on the bank, and exuded her 
people in an armed rush. They had possession of 
the place almost before the villagers knew of their 
arrival, and proceeded to the object of their call. 
There was no especial show of violence. 

The women and the childrien were imprisoned in 
the huts; the men were given axes, and sent off 
into the forest to cut and gather fuel; and, mean- 
while, the landing party set themselves to eat what 
they fancied, and to carry off any store of ivory and 
rubber that they might chance upon. There was 
nothing remarkable in the manoeuvre. It is the 
authorized course of proceedings when a Free State 
launch goes into the bank for wood and supplies. 

The villagers brought down the logs smartly 
enough, and waxed quite friendly on finding that 
none of the hostage women and children had been 
killed or maltreated during their absence. They duly 
gave up the German axes which had been loaned to 
them, and carried the wood aboard. Kettle ar- 
ranged its disposition. He had solid defences built 
up all round the vulnerable boiler and engines. 
He had a stout breastwork built all round inside 
the rail of the lower deck, quite stout enough to 
absorb a bullet even if fired at point-blank range. 
And he had another breastwork built on the third 
deck, above the cabins, so that he turned the flimsy 
little steamer into a very staunch, if somewhat 
ungainly, floating fort. 

He got on board the rubber and ivory he had 


A QUICK WAY WITH REBELS 


67 


collected, and had it struck down below — the divi- 
dends of the State have to be remembered first, 
even at moments of trouble like these — and then he 
gave orders, and the vessel set off again up stream. 
On the lower deck he stayed himself during the 
journey back, and gave instructions to Commander 
Balliot in the art of engine-driving. 

Balliot was sullen at first, and showed little in- 
clination to acquire so warm and grimy a craft, and 
fenced himself behind his dignity. But Kettle put 
forth his persuasive powers ; he did not hit the man, 
he merely talked; and under the merciless lash of 
that vinegary little tongue, Balliot repented him of 
his stubbornness, and set himself to acquire the ele- 
mentary knack of engine nursing and feeding and 
driving. 

^‘And now,” said Kettle, cheerfully, when the pupil 
had mastered the vague outlines of his business, 
“you see what can be done by kindness. I haven’t 
hit you once, and you know enough already not to 
blow her up if only you’re careful. Don’t you even 
sham stupid again; and, see here, don’t you grit 
your teeth at me when you think I’m not looking, 
or I’ll beat you into butcher’s meat when I’ve ham- 
mered these rebels, and have a bit of spare time. 
You want to learn a lot of manners yet, Mr. Com- 
mandant Balliot, and where I come from we teach 
these to foreigners free of charge. Just you remem- 
ber that I’m your better, my man, and give me 
proper respect, or I’ll lead you a life a nigger’s 
yellow dog wouldn’t fancy.” 

Now the revolted troops, when they saw the 
launch wriggle off the bank where she was stuck, 
and steam away down stream, were filled with 
exasperation, because they had confidently antici- 


68 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


pated making a barbecue out of Commandant 
Balliot in return for many cruelties received, and 
doing the same by any other Europeans whom they 
might catch on the steamer, because, being white, 
they would be presumably relatives of Balliot. It 
never occurred to their simple minds that the launch 
would return, much less that she would offer them 
battle; so when indeed she did appear again, they 
were in the midst of a big consultation about their 
future movements. 

However, the African who owns a gun, be he 
revolted soldier or mere peaceful farmer, never lets 
that weapon go far away from his hand, for fear 
that his neighbor should send him away into the 
land of shadows in order to possess it. And so a 
fusillade was soon commenced. But the launch, 
armed with her fine rampart of logs, bore it un- 
flinchingly, and steamed up within a hundred yards 
of the thick of them, and just held there in her 
place, with her wheel gently flapping against the 
stream, and opened a vicious fire from fifty muz- 
zles. 

Of modern rifles Kettle had only twenty on board, 
but he had an abundance of those beautiful in- 
struments known as “trade guns,” and at shot- 
range a man can be killed just as definitely by a 
dose of pot-leg out of a gas-pipe barrel as he can by 
a dum-dum bullet sent through scientific rifling. 
Indeed, for close-quarter fighting pot-leg is far more 
comprehensive, and far less likely to miss than the 
lonely modern bullet. Moroever, his crew had quite 
as much dread for him as they had for the enemy, 
and as a consequence they fought with a briskness 
which made even their grim little chief approve. 

The crowd of mutineers did not, however, offer 


A QUICK WAY WITH REBELS 


69 


themselves to be browned like a pack of helpless 
sheep for long. They were Africans who had been 
born in an atmosphere of scuffle and skirmish, and 
death had no especial terrors for them. Moreover, 
they had learnt certain elements of the modern art 
of war from white officers ; and now, in the moment 
of trial, their dull brains worked, and the crafty 
knowledge came back to them. They were a thou- 
sand strong; they had friends all round — cannibal 
friends — who would come to help in the fight and 
share in the loot; and, moreover, they had canoes. 
Other well-manned canoes also were fast coming to 
their help down stream. 

In the canoes then they put off, and Kettle smiled 
grimly as he saw the move. He had thought of this 
before, but it was greater luck than he had dared 
hope for. But now the enemy had given himself 
over into his hand. The one strong position of the 
stern-wheel launeh was her forward part. The 
Congo is full of snags and floating logs whieh can- 
not always be avoided, and so all steamers are 
strengthened to stand contact with them; and he 
could give them the stem now without risk to 
himself. 

He pretended flight when the canoes first came 
out, standing across toward the further bank of the 
river, which was some dozen miles away. The 
rebels fell into the lure, and paddled frantically after 
him. Canoe after canoe put out, as fast as they 
could be manned. The white men on the steamer 
were running away; they were frightened; there 
was spoil and revenge to be got for the taking. 
And from unseen villages on the islands and on the 
bank other canoes shot out to get their share. 

In the mean while Kettle consolidated his defences. 


70 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


Frantically lie worked, and like Trojans Clay and 
the negroes labored under him. All that drunken 
doctor’s limp laissez faire was gone now. The blood 
of some fighting ancestor had warmed up inside 
him. He might be physically weak and unhandy, 
but the lust of battle filled him up like new drink, 
and he forgot his disgraceful past, and lived only 
for the thrill of the present moment. 

The log barricades had to be lashed and strutted 
so that no collision could unship them, and all 
hands sweated and strained in that tropical heat, 
till the job could not be bettered. And at the after 
part of the lower deck. Commandant Balliot, driven 
on also by the strong-willed man whom nobody on 
board could resist, tended the engines with all his 
brain and nerve, and did his best to make the 
fighting machine perfect. 

“Now,” said Kettle at last, “as we have got those 
fool Tommies nicely tailed out about the river, we’ll 
quit this running-away game, and get to business. 
Mr. Chief Engineer, open that throttle all it’ll go, 
and let her rip, and mind you’re standing by for my 
next order. Doc, you keep your musketry class well 
in hand. Don’t waste shots. But when you see me 
going to run down a canoe, stand by to give them 
eternal ginger when they’re ten yards from the 
stern. I’ll whistle when you’re to fire.” 

Captain Kettle went on to the upper deck and 
took over the wheel, and screwed it over hard-a-port. 
The little top-heavy steamer swung round in a quick 
circle, lurching over dangerously to the outside 
edge. She ran for half a mile up stream, and then 
turned again and came back at the top of her gait. 
She was aiming at one particular canoe, which for 
a while came on pluckily enough to meet her. 


A QUICK WAY WITH REBELS 


71 


But African nerve has its limits, and the sight of 
this strange uncouth steamer, which followed so 
unflinchingly their every movement, was too much 
for the sweating paddlers. They turned their pon- 
derous dug-out’s head, and tried to escape. 

Kettle watched them like a cat. He had the 
whistle string in his teeth, so as to leave him both 
hands free for the steering wheel, and when the 
moment came he threw back his head, and drew 
the string. The scream of the steam whistle was 
swamped instantly in the roar of a blasting volley. 
Not many of the shots hit — ^for the African is not a 
marksman — but the right effect was gained. The 
blacks in the canoe ducked and flinched; they were 
for the moment quite demoralized; and before they 
could man their paddles again, the stern-wheeler’s 
stem had crushed into their vessel, had cut a great 
gash from one side, had rolled it over, and then 
mounted the wreck, and drove down stream across 
the top of it. 

A few more angry shots snapped out at the black 
bodies swimming in the 3^ellow water. “Hold up, 
there,” Kettle ordered, “and let them swim if they 
can, and chance the crocodiles. They’ve got their 
gruel. Load up now, and get ready for the next.” 

He turned the launch again, and stood across the 
stream down the strung-out line of canoes, occasion- 
ally making feints at them, but ramming no more 
for the present. They all fired at him as he passed 
them; indeed, a wild, scattered fire was general 
from all the fleet; but his log armor protected him 
from this, and he steamed grimly on, without re- 
turning a shot. 

At the furthermost end of the line he turned sharp- 
ly again, and ran down the last canoe, just as he 


72 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


had run down the other; and then he deliberately 
started to drive the whole fleet together into one 
solid flock. He had the speed of them, and with 
rifle fire they could not damage him, but for all 
that it was not easy work. They expected the 
worst, and made desperate efforts to scatter and 
escape; finally, he drove them altogether in one 
hopeless huddle — cowed, scared, and tired out; and 
then he brought the stern-wheeler to a sudden stop 
just above them, and made Clay shout out terms 
in the native tongue. 

They were to throw all their weapons overboard 
into the river. They did it without question. 

They were to throw their paddles overboard. 
They did that also. 

They were to tie all their canoes together into one 
big raft. They obeyed him there, too, with frenzied 
quickness. 

He took the raft in tow and steamed off down 
river to the headquarters Free State post of the 
Upper River. He was feeling almost complacent at 
the time. He had shown Commandant Balliotwhat 
he was pleased to term a quick way with rebels. 

But Commandant Balliot, whose life had been 
saved, and army disarmed and brought back from 
rebellion in spite of himself, was not the man to let 
an3^ vague feeling of gratitude over weigh his own 
deep sense of injury. He was incompetent, and he 
knew it, but Kettle had been tactless enough to tell 
him so ; and, moreover. Kettle had thrown out the 
national gibe about Waterloo, which no Belgian can 
ever forgive. Commandant Balliot gritted his teeth, 
and rubbed at his scrubby beard, and melodramati- 
cally vowed revenge. 

He said nothing about it then; he even sat at 


A QUICK WAY WITH REBELS 


73 


meat with the two Englishmen, and shared the 
ship duties with them without so mueh as a mur- 
mur. He could not but notice, too, that Kettle 
said nothing more now about being supreme chief, 
and had, in fact, tacitly dropped back to his old 
position as skipper of the launch. But Balliot 
brooded over the injuries he had received at the 
hands of this truculent little sailor, and they grew 
none the smaller from being held in memory. 

Kettle’s own method of reporting his doings, too, 
was not calculated to endear him to the authorities. 
He steamed down to headquarters at Leopoldville, 
went ashore, and swung into the Commandant’s 
house with easy contempt and assurance. He gave 
an arid account of the launch’s voyage up the great 
river to the centre of Africa and back, and then in 
ten words described Balliot’s disaster, his rescue, 
and its cost. “And so,” he wound up, “as the con- 
tract was outside Mr. Balliot’s size, I took it in my 
own hands and carried it through. I’ve brought 
back your blooming army down here. It’s quite 
tame now.” 

The Commandant at Leopoldville nodded stiffly, 
and said he would confer with Captain Kettle’s 
senior officer. Commandant Balliot, after which 
Kettle would probably hear something further. 

“All right,” said the little man. “I should tell you, 
too, that Mr. Balliot’s not without his uses. With 
a bit of teaching I got him to handle my engines 
quite decent for an amateur.” He turned to go, 
but stopped again in the glare of the doorway. “Oh, 
there’s one other thing. I want to recommend to you 
Doctor Clay. He’s a good man. Clay. He stood by 
me well in the trouble we had, after he got roused 
up. I’d like to recommend him for promotion.” 


74 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


“I will see if Commandant Balliot — as senior 
officer — adds his recommendation to yours,” said the 
other drily. “Good-morning to you for the present.” 

Captain Kettle went down to the beach, and 
stepped along the gangway on to the stern-wheel 
launch. The working negroes on the lower deck 
stopped their chatter for the moment as he passed, 
and looked up at him with a queer mixture of awe and 
admiration. From above came the tinkle of a banjo 
and the roar of an English song. The doctor was free, 
and was amusing himself according to his fashion. 

Kettle got his accordion and went up on the 
hurricane deck and joined him, and till near on 
sundown the pair of them sat there giving forth 
music alternately. There was a fine contrast be- 
tween them. The disreputable doctor deliberately 
forgot everything of the past, and lived only for the 
reckless present; the shipmaster had got his wife 
and children always filling half his memory, and 
was in a constant agony lest he should fail to 
properly provide for them. And as a consequence 
Clay’s music was always of the lighter sort, and 
was often more than impolite ; while Kettle’s was, 
for the most part, devotional, and all of it sober, 
staid, and thoughtful. They were a strong contrast, 
these two, but they pulled together with one an- 
other wonderfully. Kettle used sometimes to wonder 
why it was, and came to the conclusion that it was 
the tie of music which did it. But Clay never wor- 
ried about the matter at all. He was not the man 
to fill his head with useless problems. 

But on this afternoon their concert was cut short 
before its finish. Commandant Balliot came back 
to the launch with satisfaction on his streaming face, 
and two armed black soldiers plodding at his heels. 


A QUICK WAY WITH REBELS 


75 


“Well,’’ said Kettle, “have they made you a colonel 
yet, or are they only going to give you the Congo 
medal?” 

“You sacred pig,” said Balliot, “you talked to M. 
le Commandant here of rebels. What are you but a 
rebel? I have told him all, and he has sent me to 
arrest you.” 

“Good old Waterloo,” said Kettle cheerfully. “I 
bet you lied, and because you are both Belgians, I 
suppose he believed you.” 

The fat man gritted his teeth. “You talked ot 
having a short way with rebels yourself. You will 
find that we have a short way here, too. You are 
under arrest.” 

“So you’ve said.” 

Balliot said a couple of words in the native to one 
of his followers, and the man produced a pair of 
rusty handcuffs and held them out alluringly. 

Kettle’s pale cheeks flushed darkly. “No,” he said, 
“by James ! No, that’s not the way for a thing like 
you to set about it.” He jumped to his feet, and 
thrust his savage little face close to the black sol- 
dier’s eyes. “Give me dem handcuffs.” The man 
surrendered them limply, and Kettle flung them 
overboard. Balliot was trying to get a revolver 
from the leather holster at his waist, but Kettle, 
who had his weapon in a hip pocket, was ready 
first, and covered him. 

“Throw up your hands !” 

Commandant Balliot did so. He knew enough 
about Captain Kettle to understand that he meant 
business. 

“Tell your soldiers to drop their guns, or I’ll 
spread their brains on the deck.” 

Balliot obeyed that order also. 


76 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


“Now, Doc,” said Kettle in a different tone, “pack 
your traps and go ashore.” 

“What for?” asked Clay. 

“Because I’m going to take this steamer for a cruise 
up river. I don’t mind getting the sack; I’d reck- 
oned on that. But, by James! I’m not going to be 
arrested by these Belgian brutes, and that’s final.” 

“Well, I suppose they would string you up, or 
shoot you, to soothe their precious dignity, from 
what His Whiskers here says.” 

“They’re not going to get the chance,” snapped 
Kettle. “Handcuffs, by James! Here, clear out. 
Doc, and let me get the ship under way.” 

“No,” said Clay. “I fancy I’ve had about enough 
of the Congo Free State service, too. I’ll come, 
too.” 

“Don’t be an idiot.” 

Dr. Clay gave a whimsical laugh. “Have I ever 
been an3Thing else all my life?” — He went across 
and took the revolver out of Balliot’s holster — 
“Now, there, I’ve burnt my boats. I’ve disarmed 
His Whiskers here, and defied authorit^^, and that 
gives them a casus belli against me. You’ll have 
to take me along now out of sheer pit3^” 

“Very well,” said Kettle; “help me to shove the 
three of them into one of the empty rooms below, 
and then mount guard on them to see they don’t 
make a row. We mustn’t have them giving the 
alarm of this new game till we’ve got a start on 
us. You’re a good soul. Doc. I’ll never forget this 
of you.” 

And so Captain Owen Kettle finally severed his 
connection with the Congo Free State service, and 
set off at once again as his own master. He had 
no trouble with the black crew of the launch. The 


A QUICK WAY WITH REBELS 


77 


men half adored, half dreaded him; and, anyway, 
were prepared to take his orders before any others. 
They got the little vessel under weigh again, and 
just before the gang-plank was pulled in. Command- 
ant Balliot and his disarmed escort were driven on 
» 

to the beach. 

The Belgian was half wild with mortification and 
anger. ‘‘You have won now,” he screamed. “But 
you will be fetched back, and I myself will see that 
you are disgracefully hanged.” 

“If you come after me and worry me,” said Kettle, 
coolly, “I’ll give you my men to chop. Just you re- 
member that, Mr. Waterloo. I think you know 
already that I am a fellow that never lies.” 


CHAPTER IV 


THE NEW REPUBLIC 

The fighting ended, and promptly both the in- 
vaders and the invaded settled down to the new 
course of things without further exultation or regret. 
An hour after it had happened, the capture of the 
village was already regarded as ancient history, 
and the two white men had got a long way on 
in their discussion on its ultimate fate. 

“No,” Captain Kettle was saying, “no being king 
for me. Doctor, thank you. I’ve been offered a 
king’s ticket once, and that sickened me of the job 
for good and always. The world’s evidently been 
going on too long to start a new kingdom nowa- 
days, and I’m too much of a conservative to trj^ 
and break the rule. No, a republic’s the thing, and, 
as you say, I’m the stronger man of the two of us. 
Doc, you may sign me on as President.” 

Dr. Clay turned away his face, and relieved his 
feelings with a grin. But he very carefully concealed 
his merriment. He liked Kettle, liked him vastly; 
but at the same time he was more than a little 
scared of him, and he had a very accurate notion 
that the man who failed to take him seriously about 
this new scheme, would come in contact with trou- 
ble. The scheme was a big one ; it purposed setting 
up a new state in the heart of the Etat du Congo, 
on territory filched from that power; but the little 
sailor was in deadly earnest over the project, and 


THE NEW REPUBLIC 


79 


already he had met with extraordinary luck in the 
initial stages. Central Africa is a country where 
determined coups de main can sometimes yield sur- 
prising results. 

The recent history of these two vagabond white 
men cannot be given in this place with any web of 
detail. They had gone through their apprenticeship 
amongst these African inlands as officers of the 
Congo Free State ; they had been divorced from that 
service with something of suddenness ; and a purist 
might have held that the severance of their ties 
was complicated with something very near akin to 
piracy. I know that they had been abominably 
oppressed ; I know that Kettle chose running away 
with his steamer to the alternative of handcuffs and 
disgrace, and a possible hanging to follow; but 
there was no getting over the fact that the stern- 
wheeler was Free State property, and that these 
two had alienated it to their own uses. 

The black crew of the launch and the black sol- 
diers on board, some seventy head all told, they 
had little trouble in dragooning into obedience. The 
Central African native never troubles himself much 
about niceties of loyalty, and as the sway of the 
Congo Free State (or “Buli Matdi,” as it is named 
by the woolly aboriginal), had been brutally tyran- 
nous, the change of allegiance had worried them 
little. Besides, they had been in contact with Cap- 
tain Kettle before, and knew him to be that admir- 
able thing, a Man, and worthy of being served; 
while Clay, whom they also knew, amused them 
with his banjo, and held powerful in the shape 
of drugs ; and so they went blithely enough where 
they were led or driven, and described themselves 
as soldiers or slaves, whichever word happened to 


80 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


come handiest. The African of the interior never 
worries his head about the terms of his service. So 
long as he has plenty of food, and a master to do 
all the thinking for him, he is quite content to work, 
or steal, or fight, or be killed, as that master sees fit 
to direct. 

The progress of the little stern- wheel steamer on 
her return journey up the Haut Congo might also 
give rise to misapprehension here at home, if it were 
described exactly as it happened. There are no 
ship’s chandlers in Central Africa, and it is the cus- 
tom there, when you laek stores, to go to a village 
on the bank and requisition anything that is avail- 
able. The Arab slave-traders who once held the 
country did this ; the prehistoric people before them 
founded the custom; and the Free State authorities, 
their lineal descendants, have not seen fit to change 
the policy. At least, they may have done so in 
theory at Brussels, but out there, in practice, they 
have left this matter in statu quo. 

There is a massive conservatism about the heart 
of Afriea with which it is dangerous to tamper. If 
you rob a man in that region, he merely respects 
your superior power. If you offer him payments, 
he promptly suspects you of weakness, and sets his 
clumsy mind at work to find the method by which 
you may be robbed of whatever you have not 
voluntarily surrendered. 

“Of course,” said Kettle, taking up the thread of 
his tale again, “it’s understood that we run this 
country for our own advantage first.” 

“What other object should white men have up- 
country in Africa?” said Clay. “We don’t come here 
merely for our health.” 

“But I’ve got a great notion of treating the 


THE NEW REPUBLIC 


81 


people well besides. When we have made a sufficient 
pile — and, mark you, it must be all in ivory, as 
there’s nothing else of value that can be easy enough 
handled — we shall clear out for the Coast, one-time. 
And then we must realize on the ivory, and then 
we can go home and live as Christians again.” He 
stared through the doorway of the hut at the ach- 
ing sunshine beyond. ‘‘Oh, Lord ! Think of it. Doc — 
Home ! England ! Decent clothes ! Regular attend- 
ance in chapel on Sundays, and your soul well cared 
for and put into safe going order again!” 

“Oh, my soul doesn’t bother me. But England! 
that’s fine to think about, old man, isn’t it? Eng- 
land!” he repeated dreamily. “Yes, I suppose I 
should have to change my name if I did go back. 
I don’t know, though. It’d have blown over by 
now, perhaps; things do blow over, and if I went 
to a new part of the country I expect I could still 
stick to the old name, and not be known from 
Adam. Yes, things do blow over with time, and if 
you don’t make too much stir when you go back. 
I should have to keep pretty quiet; but I bet I’d 
have a good time for all that. Fancy the luxury 
of having good Glenlivet in a cask again, with a 
tap half-way up, after the beastly stuff one got on 
the coast, or, worse still, what one gets up here— 
and that’s no whiskey at all!” 

“Well, you needn’t worry about choosing your 
home drinks just now,” said Kettle. “‘Palaver no 
set’ here by a very long chalk yet, and till it is 
you’ll have to go sober, my lad, and keep a very 
clear head.” 

Clay came to earth again. “Sorry, Skipper,” he 
said, “but you set me off. ’Tisn’t often I look 
across at either to-morrow or yesterday. As you 
6 


82 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


say, it’s a very dry shop this, and so the sooner 
we get what we want and quit, the sooner we shall 
hit on a good time again. And the sooner we clear 
out, too, the less chance we have of those beastly 
Belgians coming in here to meddle. You know we’ve 
had luck so far, and they haven’t interfered with us. 
But we can’t expect that for always. The Congo 
Free State’s a trading corporation, with dividends 
to make for the firm of Leopold and Co., in Brussels, 
and they don’t like trade rivals. What stealing can 
be done in the country, they prefer to do themselves.” 

“When the time comes,” said the little sailor 
grimly, “we shall be ready for them, and if they 
interfere with me, I shall make the Congo Free 
State people sit up. But in the mean while they are 
not here, and I don’t see that they need be expected. 
They can trace us up the Congo from Leopoldville, 
if you like, by the villages we stopped at — one, we’ll 
say, every two hundred miles — but then we find this 
new river, and where are we? The river’s not char- 
ted; it’s not known to any of the Free State peo- 
ple, or I, being in their steamboat service, would 
have been told of it; and the entrance is so well 
masked at its Congo end by islands, that no one 
would guess it was there. The Congo’s twenty 
miles wide where our river comes in, and very shal- 
low, and the steamer-channel’s right at the further 
bank. If they’d another Englishman in their service 
up here, I’d not say ; but don’t you tell me that the 
half-baked Dutchmen and Dagos who skipper their 
launches would risk hunting out a new channel, and 
blunder on it that way.” 

“No,” said Clay, “I’m with you there. But word 
travels amongst the natives. You can’t get over 
that.” 


THE NEW REPUBLIC 


83 


“That’s where the risk comes in. But I’ve done 
my best to make it travel slow. I’ve got hold of 
that beast of a witch-doctor, who deserves hanging 
anyway for all the poor wretches he’s killed, and 
I’ve told him that as soon as word slips out down- 
river of our being here, he’ll get shot, one-time. He’s 
a man of influence, that witch-doctor, and I should- 
n’t wonder but what he makes the natives keep 
their heads shut for quite a long time.” 

“It may be professional prejudice, but I rather 
hope that local practitioner gets his gruel somehow 
before we clear out.” Clay shivered. “He’s a cruel 
devil. Remember the remains of those two poor 
sacrificed wretches we found when we got here?” 

Kettle shrugged his shoulders. “I know. But 
what could one do? Niggers always are like that 
when they’re left to play about alone — as these here 
have been, I suppose, since Creation Day. We 
couldn’t pin the sacrifices on to the witch-doctor, or 
else, of course, we’d have strung him up. We could 
only just give him an order for these customs to 
stop one-time, and stand by to see it carried out. 
But we start the thing from now, on fresh, sensible 
lines. We’re going to have no foolery about the 
nigger being as good as a white man. He isn’t, and 
no man that ever saw him where he grows ever 
thought so.” 

“Speaking scientifically,” said Clay, “it has always 
struck me that a nigger is an animal placed by the 
scheme of creation somewhere between a monkey 
and a white man. You might bracket him, say, 
with a Portugee.” 

“About that,” said Kettle; “and if you treat him 
as more, you make him into a bad failure, whereas 
if he’s left alone, he’s a bit nasty and cruel. Now I 


84 


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think, Doc, there’s a middle course, and that’s what 
I’m going to try here whilst we’re making our pile. 
We’ve grabbed four tidy villages already, and that 
makes a good beginning for this new republic ; and 
when we’ve got things organized a bit more, and 
have a trifle of time, we can grab some others. And, 
by James! Doc, there’s a name for you — the New 
Republic I” 

“I seem to think it’s been used in a book some- 
where.” 

“The New Republic!” Kettle repeated relishingly. 
“It goes well. It’s certain to have been used before, 
but it’s good enough to be used again. Some day, 
perhaps, it’ll have railways, and public-houses, and 
a postal service, and some day it may even issue 
stamps of its own.” 

“With your mug in the middle!” 

Captain Kettle reddened. “I don’t see why not,” 
he said stiffly. “I started the show, and by James! 
whilst I’m running it, the New Republic’s got to 
hum ; and when I’m gone, I shall be remembered as 
some one out of the common. I’m a man. Doctor 
Clay, that’s got a high sense of duty. I should 
think it wrong to stay here sweating ivory out of 
these people, if I didn’t put something into them in 
return.” 

“Well, you do seem to have got a hold over them, 
and that’s a fact, and I guess you will be able to 

make them ’ ’ he broke off, and burst into a cackle 

of laughter. “Oh, my Christian aunt, look there!” 

A mob of natives were reverently approaching the 
hut, two of them carrying skinny chickens. The 
witch-doctor led the advance. Kettle guessed what 
was intended, and got up from his seat to interfere. 

“Oh, look here. Skipper,” Clay pleaded, “don’t 


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85 


Spoil the show. Let’s do the traveller for onee, and 
observe the ‘interesting native customs.’ You 
needn’t be afraid ; they’re going to sacrifice the 
bigger hen to you, right enough.” 

Captain Kettle allowed himself to be persuaded, 
and sat back again. The mob of negroes came up 
to the doorway of the hut, and the witch-doctor, 
with many prostrations to the little sailor, made a 
long speech. Then the larger of the two fowls en- 
tered into the ceremony, and was slain with a 
sword, and the witch-doctor, squatting on the 
ground, read the omens. 

Kettle accepted the homage with glum silence, 
evidently restraining himself, but when Clay’s turn 
came, and the smaller and scraggier of the chickens 
yielded up life in his honor, he hitched up his feet, 
and squatted cross-legged on the chair, and held 
up his hand palm outward, after the manner of 
some grotesque Chinese idol. A sense of the absurd 
was one of the many things which had hampered 
this disreputable doctor all through his unlucky 
career. 

The negroes, however, took it all in good part, 
and in time they departed, well satisfied. But Kettle 
wore a gloomy face. 

‘‘Funny, wasn’t it?” said Clay. 

“I call it beastly,” Kettle snapped. “This sort of 
thing’s got to stop. I’m not going to have my new 
Republic dirtied by shows like that.” 

“Well,” said Clay flippantly, “if you will set up 
as a little tin god on wheels, you must expect them 
to say their prayers to you.” 

“I didn’t do anything of the kind. I merely 
stepped in and conquered them.” 

“Put it as you please, old man. But there’s no 


86 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


getting over it that that’s what they take yon 
for.” 

‘‘Then, by Janies! it comes to this: they shall 
be taught the real thing!” 

“What, you’ll import a missionary?” 

“I shall wade in and teach them myself.” 

“Phew!” whistled Clay. “If you’re going to 
start the New Jerusalem game on the top of the 
New Republic, I should say you’ll have your hands 
full.” 

“Probably,” said Kettle grimly; “but I am equal 
to that.” 

“And you’ll not have much time left to see after 
ivory palaver.” 

“I shall go on collecting the ivory just the same. 
I shall combine business with duty. And” — here he 
flushed somewhat — “I’m going to take the bits of 
souls these niggers have got, and turn them into 
the straight path.” 

Clay rubbed his bald head. “If you’re set on it,” 
said he, “you’ll do it; I quite agree with you there. 
But I should have thought you’d seen enough of 
the nigger to know what a disastrous animal he is 
after some of these missionaries have handled him.” 

“Yes,” said Kettle; “but those were the wrong 
sort of missionary — wrong sort of man to begin 
with; wrong sort of religion also.” 

And then, to Dr. Clay’s amazement, his companion 
broke out into a violent exposition of his own par- 
ticular belief. It was the first time he had ever 
heard Kettle open his lips on the subject of relig- 
ion, and the man’s vehemence almost scared him. 
Throughout the time they had been acquainted, he 
had taken him to be like all other lay white men 
on the Congo, quite careless on the subject, and an 


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87 


abhorrer of missions and all their output; and, lo! 
here was an enthusiast, with a violent creed of his 
very own, and with ranting thunders to heave at 
all who differed from him by so much as a hairs- 
breadth. Here was a devotee who suddenly, across 
a great ocean of absence, remembered the small 
chapel in South Shields, where during shore days 
he worshipped beside his wife and children. Here 
was a prophet, jerked by circumstances into being, 
trumpeting the tenets of an obscure sect with some- 
thing very near to inspiration. 

He preached and preached on till the tropical day 
burned itself out, and the velvety night came down, 
and with it the mists from the river. The negroes 
of the village, with their heads wrapped up to keep 
off the ghosts, shivered as they listened to “dem 
small whiteman make ju-ju” across the clearing. 
Clay listened because he could not get away. He 
knew the man well, yes, intimately; he was con- 
stantly dealing him out unpalatable flippancies ; but 
in this new, this exalted mood, he did not care to 
do less than give attention. 

The man seemed to have changed; his eyes were 
bright and feverish; his face was drawn; his voice 
had lost its shipmaster’s brusqueness, and had ac- 
quired the drone of the seaman’s shore conventicle. 
There was no doubt about his earnestness ; in Clay’s 
mind, there was no doubt about the complications 
which would ensue from it. 

When Dr. Clay lay down on his bed that night, 
his mind was big with foreboding. Ever since that 
entanglement with the woman occurred, which 
ruined forever his chance of practicing in England, 
he had gone his way with a fine recklessness as to 
consequences. He had lived for the day, and the day 


88 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


only; he had got to the lowest peg on the medical 
scale; and any change would be an improvement. 
He carried with him an incomplete case of instru- 
ments, a wire-strung banjo, and a fine taste in 
liquor and merriment as stock-in-trade, and if any 
of the many shapes which Death assumes in the 
Congo region came his way, why there he was 
ready to journey on. 

But during these last weeks a chance had appeared 
of returning to England with a decent compe- 
tency, and he jumped at it with an eagerness which 
only those who have at one time or other “gone 
under” themselves can appreciate. In effect he had 
entered into a partnership with Captain Owen Ket- 
tle over a filibustering expedition — although they 
gave the thing different names — and from the first 
their ivory raiding had been extraordinarily suc- 
cessful. If only they could collect on undisturbed 
for another six months at the same rate, and then 
get their spoils down to the coast and shipped, the 
pair of them stepped into a snug competence at 
once. But this latest vagary of his partner’s seemed 
to promise disruption of the whole enterprise. He 
did not see how Kettle could possibly carry out 
this evangelizing scheme, on which he had so sud- 
denly gone crazed, without quite neglecting his other 
commercial duties. 

However, in the course of the next day or so, as 
he witnessed Captain Kettle’s method of spreading 
his faith. Clay’s forebodings began to pass away. 
There was nothing of the hypocrite about this 
preaching sailor; but, at the same time, there was 
nothing of the dreamer. He exhorted vast audien- 
ces daily to enter into the narrow path (as defined 
by the Tyneside chapel), but, at the same time, he 


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89 


impressed on them that the privilege of treading 
this thorny way in no manner exempted them from 
the business of gathering ivory, by one means or 
another, for himself and partner. 

Kettle had his own notions as to how this pros- 
elytizing should be carried on, and he set about it 
with a callous disregard for modern precedent. He 
expounded his creed — the creed of the obscure Tyne- 
side chapel — partl3^ in Coast-English, partly in the 
native, partly through the medium of an inter- 
preter, and he commanded his audience to accept it, 
much as he would have ordered men under him to 
have carried out the business of shipboard. If any 
one had doubts, he explained further — once. But he 
did not allow too many doubts. One or two who 
inquired too much felt the weight of his hand, and 
forthwith the percentage of sceptics decreased mar- 
vellously. 

Clay watched on, non-interferent, hugging him- 
self with amusement, but not daring to let a trace 
of it be seen. “And I thought,” he kept telling 
himself with fresh spasms of suppressed laughter, 
“that that man’s sole ambition was to set up here 
as a sort of robber baron, and here he’s wanting 
to be Mahomet as well. The crescent or the sword ; 
Kettleism or kicks ; it’s a pity he hasn’t got some 
sense of humor, because as it is I’ve got all the fun 
to myself. He’d eat me if I told him how it looked 
to an outsider.” 

Once, with the malicious hope of drawing him, 
he did venture to suggest that Kettle’s method of 
manufacturing converts was somewhat sudden and 
arbitrary, and the little sailor took him seriously 
at once. 

“Of course it is,” said he. “And if you please, 


90 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


why shouldn’t it be? My intelligence is far supe- 
rior to theirs at the lowest estimate; and there- 
fore I must know what’s best for them. I order 
them to become members of my chapel, and they 
do it.” 

“They do it like birds,” Clay admitted. “You’ve 
got a fine grip over them.” 

“I think they respect me.” 

“Oh, they think you no end of a fine man. In 
fact they consider you, as I’ve said before, quite 
a little tin ” 

“Now stop it. Doc. I know you’re one of those 
fellows that don’t mean half they say, but I won’t 
have that thrown against me, even in jest.” 

“Well,” said Clay, slily, “there’s no getting over 
the fact that some person or persons unknown sac- 
rificed a hen up against the door of this hut under 
cover of last night, and I guess they’re not likely to 
waste the fowl on me.” 

“One can’t cure them of their old ways all at 
once,” said Kettle, with a frown. 

“And some genius,” Clay went on, “has carved 
a little wooden image in trousers and coat, nicely 
whitewashed, and stuck up on that old ju-ju tree 
down there by the swamp. I saw it when I was 
down there this morning. Of course, it mayn’t be 
intended to be a likeness of you, skipper, but 
it’s got a pith helmet on, which the up-countrj^ 
nigger doesn’t generally add to portraits of him- 
self; and moreover, it’s wearing a neat torpedo 
beard on the end of its chin, delicately colored ver- 
milion.” 

“Well?” said Kettle sourly. 

“Oh, that had got a hen sacrificed in front of it, too, 
that’s all. I recognize the bird ; he was a game old 


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rooster that used to crow at me every time I passed 
him.” 

“Beastly pagans,” Kettle growled. “There’s lio 
holding some of them yet. They suck up the glad 
tidings like mother’s milk at first, and they’re back 
at their old ways again before you’ve taught them 
the tune of a hymn. I just want to catch one or 
two of these backsliders. By James! I’ll give them 
fits in a way they won’t forget.” 

But if Captain Kettle was keen on the conver- 
sion of the heathen to the tenets of the Tyneside 
chapel, he was by no means forgetful of his com- 
mercial duties. He had always got Mrs. Kettle, the 
family, and the beauties of a home life in an agri- 
cultural district at the back of his mind, and to pro- 
vide the funds necessary for a permanent enjoyment 
of all these items close at hand, he worked both 
Clay and himself remorselessly. 

Ivory does not grow on hedgerows even in Africa, 
and the necessary store could by no means be picked 
up even in a day, or even in a matter of weeks. 
Ivory has been looked upon by the African savage, 
from time immemorial, not as an article of use, but 
as currency, and as such it is vaguely revered. 
He does not often of his own free will put it into 
circulation; in fact, his life may well pass without 
his once seeing it used as a purchasing medium; 
but custom sits strong on him, and he likes to have 
it by him. An Afncan chief of any position always 
has his store of ivory, usually hidden, sometimes in 
the bush, sometimes buried — for choice, under the bed 
of a stream. It is foolish of him, this custom, be- 
cause it is usually the one thing that attracts 
the white man to his neighborhood, and the white 
man’s visits are frequently fraught with disaster; 


92 


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but it is a custom, and therefore he sticks to it. 
He is not a highly reasoning animal, this Central 
Afriean savage. 

The Afriean, moreover, is used to oppression — 
that is, he either oppresses or is oppressed — and he 
is dully callous to death. So the villages were not 
mueh surprised at Kettle’s deseents upon them, and 
usually surrendered to him passively on the mere 
prestige of his name. They were pleasantly dis- 
appointed that he omitted the usual massaere, and 
in gratitude were eager to aeeept what they were 
pleased to term his Ju-ju, but whieh he deseribed as 
the creed of the Tyneside ehapel. 

They red need him to frenzy about every seeond 
day by surreptitiously saerifieing poultry in his hon- 
or; but he did not dare to make any very violent 
stand against this overstepping of the rubrie, lest 
(as was hinted to him) they should misinterpret his 
motive, and substitute a plump nigger baby for the 
more harmless spring ehieken. It is by no means 
easy to follow the workings of the blaek man’s 
brain in these matters. 

But all the time he went on gathering ivory — 
preeious ivory, worth as mueh as a thousand 
pounds a ton if he eould but get it home. Some 
of it had been buried for eenturies, and was blaek- 
brown with age and the earth ; some was new, and 
still bloody-ended and odorous; but he figured it 
all out into silk dresses for Mrs. Kettle, and other 
luxuries for those he loved, and gloated even over 
the little escrihellos whieh lay about on the village 
refuse heaps as not being worthy to hide with the 
larger tusks. 

And, between-whiles, he preaehed to the newly 
conquered, ordered them to adopt the faith of the 


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93 


South Shields chapel, and finally sang them hymns, 
which he composed himself especially to suit their 
needs, to the tunes of “Hold the Fort,” and “From 
Greenland’s Icy Mountains,” which he played very 
sweetly on the accordion. Captain Kettle might 
be very keen after business, but at the same time 
it could never be laid to his charge that he was 
ever forgetful of the duty he owed to the souls 
of these heathen who came under his masterful 
thumb. 

Dr. Clay, however, watched all the proceedings 
now with a jubilant mind. As a political division, 
the much-talked-of New Republic might be said to 
lack cohesion, but as a conquered tract of country 
it was very pleasantly in awe of Captain Kettle. 
A very comfortable store of ivory was stored in 
the principal hut of each village they came to, which 
Clay, who commanded the rear guard, always took 
care to “put ju-ju on” after his senior officer at the 
head of the force had marched out of the village 
en route for the next, that being the most satisfac- 
tory fashion of warding off pilferers. And last but 
not least, they had agreed upon their route of exit 
to a sea-coast, and (in theory at any rate) con- 
sidered it eminently practicable. 

The Congo, of course, via Leopoldville, Matadi, 
and Banana was barred to them, on account of 
their trouble with the Free State authorities. Their 
original idea had been to cross the great continent 
eastward by way of the Great Lakes, and take 
shipping somewhere by Mozambique or Zanzibar. 
But the barbarous difficulties of that route daunted 
even Kettle, when they began to consider it in de- 
tail, and the advantages of the French Congo terri- 
tory showed up brightly in comparison. 


94 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


They still had the little stern- wheel steamer that 
was filched— I beg their pardon, captured from the 
Free State, and in her, with the loot on board, 
they must creep down the Congo again, almost to 
Stanley Pool, steaming by night only, hiding at 
the back of islands during the days, always avoiding 
observation. And then they must strike across 
country due west, till they made the head-waters 
of the Ogowe, and so down to the sea, fighting a 
way through whatever tribes tried to impede them. 
The French Customs would take their toll of the 
ivory, of course, but that could not be helped ; but 
after that, a decent steamer again, and the sea, and 
home. It was an appetizing prospect. 

But castles in the clouds have been built before, 
and often it is the unexpected that sets them trun- 
dling ; and in this case such an ordinary occurrence as 
a tornado stepped into the reckoning and split this 
sighed-for edifice of success and prosperity with all 
completeness. 

There had been no tornado to clear the atmos- 
phere for nine whole days, and the country was 
unendurable accordingly. The air was stagnant 
with heat, and reeked with the lees of stale vegeta- 
tion. The sky overhead was full of lurid haze, 
which darkened the afternoon almost to a twi- 
light, and in the texture of this haze, indicated rath- 
er than definitely seen, was a constant nicker of 
lightning. It was the ordinary heat-lightning of the 
tropics, which is noiseless, but it somehow seemed 
to send out little throbs into the baking air, till, 
at times, to be alive was for a white man almost 
intolerable. 

Under this discomfort, a predatory column was 
marching on from one captured village to another. 





THE LITTLE ARMY COULD ONLY MARCH IN SINGLE FILE. 


{Pafle 95 


THE NEW REPUBLIC 


95 


whose possible store of ivory had so far not been 
gleaned. The road was the ordinary African bush- 
path, intensely winding and only foot-sole wide; 
the little army, with Kettle at its head, could only 
march in single file, and Clay, who brought up the 
straggling rear, sweated and panted quite half a 
mile behind his leader. 

Every one knew the tornado was approaching, 
and both the worn and haggard white men and the 
sweating, malodorous blacks hoped for it with equal 
intensity. F or be it known that the tropical tornado 
passes through the stale baked air at intervals, 
like some gigantic sieve, dredging out its surplus 
heat and impurities. The which is a necessity of 
Nature ; else even the black man could not endure in 
those regions. 

And in due time, though it lingered most cruelly 
in its approach, the tornado burst upon them, 
coming with an insane volley of rain and wind and 
sound, that filled the forests with crashings, and sent 
the parched earth flying in vicious mud-spirts. In a 
Northern country such a furious outburst would 
have filled people with alarm ; but here, in the tropic 
wilderness, custom had robbed the tornado of its 
dignity; and no one was awed. Indeed the blacks 
fairly basked in its violence, turning their glistening 
bodies luxuriously under the great ropes of rain. 

The march stopped at the first outbreak of the 
squall. Kettle bolted to a rock ahead of him, and 
squatted down in a dry lee, sucking up great 
draughts of the new cool air. There are times when 
a drop of five degrees of temperature can bring 
earthly bliss of a quality almost unimaginable. And 
there he stayed, philosophically waiting till the tor- 
nado should choose to blow itself out. 


96 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


The wind had started with a roar and a sudden 
squall, reaching the full climax of its strength in a 
matter of thirty seconds, and then with equal hurry 
it ended, leaving the country it had scoured full of 
a fresh, cool, glistening calm. Kettle rose to his 
feet, shook his clothes into shape, and gave the order 
to start. 

The black soldiers stepped out in his wake, and 
for half a mile he strode at their head through the 
new-made mud of the path. But then he was sud- 
denly brought up all standing. Word had been 
tediously handed down the long straggling line of 
men that there had been an accident in the rear; 
that a great tree had fallen to the blast ; and finally 
that “dem dokitar, he lib for die.” 

Swiftly Kettle turned, and worked his way back 
down the narrow lane of the path. The negroes he 
hustled against watched him with stupid stares, but 
he gave them little notice. Leaving out the facts 
that Clay was his only white companion and assist- 
ant, he had grown strangely to like the man, and 
the vague report of the accident filled him with more 
than dismay. 

He had over a mile to go before he came upon the 
scene, and when he did get there he found that the 
first report had exaggerated. Clay was not dead, 
but he lay unconscious on the ground, pinned there 
by a great cotton-wood which had crashed down 
before the fury of the wind, and which had fallen 
across his right leg. To move the tree was an im- 
possibility; but with a sailor’s resourcefulness Kettle 
set his men to dig beneath it, so that the imprisoned 
leg might be released that way; and himself gave 
them a lead. 

Clay, fortunately for himself, remained the whole 


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97 


time in a state of blank nnconsciousness, and at 
last he was released, but with his leg horribl3^ 
mangled. A hammock had meanwhile been rigged, 
and in this he was carried back to the village from 
which they had set out. Kettle led the retreat in 
front of the hammock bearers. He left his force of 
soldiers and carriers to follow, or straggle, or desert, 
as they pleased. The occupation of ivory raiding 
had completely passed from his mind; he had for- 
gotten his schemes of wholesale conversion ; he had 
nothing but Clay’s welfare left at his heart. 

He got the wounded man under cover of one 
of the village huts, and there, with the help of 
stimulants, poor Clay’s senses came back to him. 
He was lividly pale with pain and the shock, but he 
was game to the backbone, and made no especial 
complaint. Indeed, he was rather disposed to treat 
the whole thing humorously. 

“All the result of having a musical ear,” he ex- 
plained. “I made the boy who carried it put my 
banjo in a hollow of that tree out of the wet, and 
when I saw the old stick was going to crash down, 
I made a grab for the ’jo, and got it right enough. 
Well, I wasn’t sufficiently nippy in jumping out of 
the way, it seems, and as the old banjo’s busted for 
good, I shall have to trouble you for a funeral 
march on the accordion. Skipper.” 

“Funeral be hanged !” said Kettle. “You’re worth 
a whole cemetery full of dead men yet.” 

“Speaking as a doctor,” said Clay cheerfully, “I 
may tell you that your unprofessional opinion is 
rot. Now, if I’d a brother sawbones here to perform 
amputation, I might have a chance— say, one in a 
thousand.” 

“Your leg ought to be cut off?” 

7 


98 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


‘‘Just there, above the knee. That’ll mortify in 
twenty hours from now. Thank the Lord I never 
wasted much morphia on the niggers. There’s 
plenty in stock. So it won’t worry me much.” 

“Look here,” said Kettle, “I will cut that leg off 
for you.” 

“You! My good Skipper, you’re a handy man, I 
know, but what the blazes do you know about 
amputation?” 

“You’ve got to teach me. You can show me the 
tools to use, and draw diagrams of where the ar- 
teries come.” 

“By the powers, I’ve a great mind to. There’s 
something pretty rich in giving an amputation 
lecture with one’s own femorals as a subject.” 

“You’d better,” said Kettle grimly, “or I shall cut 
it off without being taught. I like you a lot too 
well, my man, to let you die for want of a bit of 
help.” 

And so, principally because the grotesqueness of 
the situation appealed to his whimsical sense of 
humor. Clay forthwith proceeded to pose as an 
anatomy demonstrator addressing a class, and ex- 
pounded the whole art of amputation, handling the 
utensils of the surgeon’s craft with the gusto of an 
expert, and never by shudder or sigh showing a 
trace of the white feather. He carried the whole 
thing through with a genial gayety, pointing his 
sentences now with a quip, now with some roguish 
sparkle of profanity, and finally he announced that 
the lecture was complete and over, and then he 
nodded familiarly at his wounded limb. 

“By-bye, old hoof!” he said. “You’ve helped carry 
the rest of me into some queer scrapes, one time and 
another. But we’ve had good times together, as 


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99 


well as bad, you and I, and anyway, I’m sorry to 
lose you. And now, skipper,” said be, “get off your 
coat and wade in. I’ve put on the Esmarch’s bandage 
for you. Don’t be niggardly with the chloroform 
— I’ve got a good heart. And remember to do what 
I told you about that femoral artery, and don’t 
make a mistake there, or else there’ll be a mess on the 
floor. Shake hands, old man, and good luck to your 
surgery; and anyway, thank you for your trouble.” 

I fancy that I have made it clear before that 
Captain Kettle was a man possessed not only of an 
iron nerve, but also of all a sailor’s handiness with 
his fingers; but here was a piece of work that re- 
quired all his coolness and dexterity. At home, on 
an operating table, with everything at hand that 
antiseptic surgery could provide, with highly trained 
surgeons and highly trained nurses in goodly num- 
bers, it would have been a formidable undertaking ; 
but there, among those savage surroundings, in 
that awful loneliness which a white man feels so 
far away from all his kin, it was a very different 
matter. 

It makes me shiver when I think how that little 
sailor must have realized his risks and his responsi- 
bility. It was a situation that would have fairl^^ 
paralyzed most men. But from what can be gath- 
ered from the last letter that the patient ever wrote, 
it is clear that Kettle carried out the operation with 
indomitable firmness and decision; and if indeed 
some of his movements were crude, he had grasped 
all the main points of his hurried teaching, and he 
made no single mistake of any but pedantic impor- 
tance. 

Clay woke up from the anaesthetic, sick, shaken, 
but still courageous as ever. “Well,” he gasped, 


100 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


“you’ve made a fine dot-and-go-one of me, Skipper, 
and that’s a fact. When you chuck the sea, and get 
back to England, and set up in a snug country 
practice as general practitioner, you’ll be able to 
look back on your first operation with pride.” 

Kettle, shaken and white, regarded him from a na- 
tive stool in the middle of the hut. “I can’t think,” 
he said, “how any men can be doctors whilst there’s 
still a crossing to sweep.” 

“Oh,” said Clay, “you’re new at it now, and a 
bit jolted up. But the trade has its points. I’ll 
argue it out with you some day. But just at pres- 
ent I’m going to try and sleep. I’m a bit jolted up, 
too.” 

Now, it is a melancholy fact to record that Dr. 
Clay did not pull round again after his accident and 
the subsequent operation. To any one who knows 
the climate, the reason will be easily understood. 
In that heated air of Central Equatorial Africa, 
tainted with all manner of harmful germs, a scratch 
will take a month to heal, and any considerable 
flesh wound may well prove a death warrant. Cap- 
tain Kettle nursed his patient with a woman’s ten- 
derness, and Clay himself struggled gamely against 
his fate; but the ills of the place were too strong 
for him, and the inevitable had to be. 

But the struggle was no quick thing of a day, or 
even of a week. The man lingered wirily on, and 
in the meanwhile Kettle saw the marvellous political 
structure, which with so much labor and daring he 
had built up, crumbling to pieces, as it were, before 
his very eyes. A company of Arab slave-traders 
had entered the district, and were recapturing his 
subject villages one by one. 


THE NEW REPUBLIC 


101 


At the first attack runners came to him imploring 
help. It was useless to send his half-baked soldiers 
without going himself. They knew no other leader; 
there was not a negro among them fit to take a 
command ; and he himself was tied. He said nothing 
to Clay, but just sent a refusal, and remained at his 
post. 

Again and again came clamorous appeals for help 
against these new invaders, and again and again 
he had to give the same stubborn refusal. His 
vaunted New Republic was being split up again into 
its primitive elements ; the creed of the South Shields 
chapel was being submerged under a wave of red-hot 
Mohammedanism; and the ivory, that hard-earned 
ivory, with all its delicious potentialities, was once 
more being lifted by alien raiders, and this time for- 
ever be3^ond his reach. 

Clay got some inkling of what was going on, and 
repeatedly urged him to be off at once and put 
things straight in person. “Don’t you worry about 
me. Skipper,” he’d say. “I’ll get along here fine by 
myself. Nobody’ll come to worry me. And if they 
did, they’d let me alone. I’m far too unwholesome- 
looking to chop just now.” 

But Kettle always stolidly refused to leave him. 
Indeed, with difficulty (for he was at all times a 
painfully truthful man) he used to lie to his patient 
and say that there was no need for him to go at all ; 
that everything was going on quite as they could 
wish; and that he was vastly enjoying the relaxa- 
tion of a holiday. 

But in sober fact things were going very much 
awry. And every day they got worse. Even his 
original bevy of troops, those he had brought up 
with him into the country on the stern- wheel launch. 


102 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


seemed to grasp the fact that his star was in the 
descendant. There was no open mutiny, for they 
still feared him too much personally to dare that; 
but in the black unwatched nights they stole away 
from the village, and every day their numbers thinned, 
and the villagers followed their lead ; and when the 
end came, the two lonely white men had the village 
to themselves. 

Clay’s last words were typical of him. Kettle, 
with devotional intent, had been singing some hymn 
to him, which he had composed as being suitable 
for the occasion. But the dying man’s ears were 
dulled, and he mistook both air and words. ‘‘You’re 
a good fellow to sing me that,” he whispered. “I 
know you don’t like striking up that sort of music. 
By Jove! I heard that song last at the Pav. Good 
old Piccadilly Circus.” 

And then a little later: ‘‘I say. Skipper. I’m close 

on the peg-out. There’s a girl in Winchester but 

hang her, anyway. No, you’ve been my best pal. 
You’re to have all my share of the loot — the ivory, 
I mean. You savvy, I leave it to you in my last 
will and testament, fairly and squarely. And Skipper, 
I’m sorry I ragged you about your mug on those 
New Republic stamps. If ever a man deserved what 
he wanted in that line, you’re — you’re ” 

The voice failed. “Yes?” said Kettle, and stooped 
nearer. 

Clay feebly winked. “You’re him,” he whispered. 
“So long, old cock.” 

Captain Kettle buried his friend in the first gold 
of the next dawn under a magnolia tree, which was 
hung with sweet-scented blossoms, in the middle of 
the village. During the heat of the day he composed 
a copy of verses to his memory, and when the sun 


THE NEW REPUBLIC 


103 


had dropped somewhat, he went out with his knife 
to carve them on the tree above the grave. 

It appeared that the village was not so completely 
deserted as seemed to the eye, or, at any rate, that 
he had been watched. On the newly turned earth 
was a chicken, which had been sacrificed in the 
orthodox fashion; and for once he beheld the sight 
without resentment. 

He raised his hat to the dead, and “Doc,” he said, 
“this hen-killing is bang against my principles, but 
I won’t say anything now. I guess it’s some nig- 
ger’s way of showing respect to you, and, by James ! 
you’re a fellow that ought to be admired. If only 
it hadn’t been for that tree falling down, there’d have 
been two men round here that would have left their 
mark on Africa, and you’re one of them. Well, old 
man, you’re gone, and I hope you’re looking down 
this moment — or up, as the case may be — to read 
this bit of poetry I’m going to stick above your 
head. It’s worth attention. It’s about the best 
sample of rhyme I ever hoisted out.” 


CHAPTER V 


THE LOOTING OF THE “INDIAN SHERIFF.” 

Captain Kettle dived two fingers into the bowl 
of odorous, orange-colored palm-oil chop, and fished 
out a joint suspiciousl3^ like a nigger baby’s arm. 
He knew it was a monke^^’s; or at least he was 
nearly certain it was a monkey’s; but he ate no 
more from that particular bowl. The tribe he was 
with were not above suspicion of cannibalism, and 
though their hospitality was lavish, it was by no 
means guaranteed as to quality. 

The head-man noticed his action, and put a smil- 
ing question: “You no like dem climb-climb chop? 
Tooth him plenty sore?’’ 

“No,” said Kettle, “my teeth are all in good 
working order, daddy, thanks. But now you men- 
tion it, the monke3^ is a bit tough. Not been stewed 
long enough, perhaps.” 

The head-man gave an order, and presently a 
woman at the cooking fire outside brought another 
calabash into the hut, and set it at the little 
sailor’s feet. The head-man examined and explained : 
“Dem’s dug chop, too-plenty-much fine. You fit?” 

“I fit,” said Kettle; “that’ll suit me down to the 
ground, daddy. Stewed duck is just the thing I 
like, and palm-oil sauce isn’t half bad when you’re 
used to it. I’ll recommend your pub to my friends, 
old one-eye, when I get home.” 

He dipped his digits into the stew, and drew forth 


THE LOOTING OF THE “INDIAN SHERIFF” 


105 


a doubtful limb. He regarded it with a twitching 
nose and critical eye. 

“Thundering heavy-boned duck this, of 3^ours, 
daddy.” 

“Me no savvy?” said his host questioningly. 

“I say dem dug he got big bone. He no fit for fly. 
He no say quack-quack.” 

“Oh, I savvy plenty,” said the one-eyed man, smil- 
ing. “Dem not quack-quack dug, dem bow-wow 
dug. You see him bow-wow dis morning. You 
hit him with foot, so.” 

“Ugh,” said Kettle, “dog stew, is it? Yes, I know 
the animal, if you say he’s the one I kicked. I had 
watched the brute eating garbage about the village 
for half an hour, and then when he wanted to chew 
my leg, I hit him. Ugh, daddy, don’t you bring on 
these delicacies quite so sudden, or I shall forget 
my table manners. African scavenger dog ! And I 
saw him make his morning meal. Here, Missis, for 
Heaven’s sake take this dish away.” 

The glistening black woman stepped forward, but 
the head-man stopped her. There was some mistake 
here. He had killed the best dog in the village for 
Captain Kettle’s meal, and his guest for some fastid- 
ious reason refused to eat. He pointed angrily to 
the figured bowl. “Dug chop,” said he. “Too-much- 
good. You chop him.” This rejection of excellent 
food was a distinct slur on his menage, and he was 
working himself up into passion. “You chop dem 
dug chop one-time,” he repeated. 

The situation was growing strained, and might 
well culminate in fisticuffs. But Captain Kettle, 
during his recent many months’ sojourn as a lone 
white man in savage Africa, had acquired one thing 
which had never burdened him much before, and 


106 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


that was tact. He did not openly resent the impera- 
tive tone of his host, which any one who had 
known him previously would have guessed to be 
his first impulse. But neither at the same time did 
he permit himself to be forced into eating the nox- 
ious meal. He temporized. With that queer polyglot 
called Coast English, and with shreds from a score 
of native dialects, he made up a tattered fabric of 
speech which beguiled the head-man back again into 
good humor; and presently that one-eyed savage 
squatted amicably down on his heels, and gave an 
order to one of his wives in attendance. 

The lady brought Kettle’s accordion, and the little 
sailor propped his back against the wattle wall of the 
hut, and made music, and lifted up his voice in song. 
The tune carried among the lanes and dwellings of 
the village, and naked feet pad-padded quickly up 
over dust and the grass; the audience distributed 
itself within and without the head-man’s hut, and 
listened enrapt ; and the head-man felt the glow of 
satisfaction that a London hostess feels when she 
has hired for money the most popular drawing-room 
entertainer of the day, and her guests condescend 
to enjoy, and not merely to exhibit themselves as 
biases. 

But Captain Kettle, it must be confessed, felt none 
of the artist’s pride in finding his art appreciated. 
He had always the South Shields chapel at the 
back of his mind, with its austere code and creed, 
and he felt keenly the degradation of lowering him- 
self to the level of the play-actor ; even though he 
was earning his bare existence — and had been doing 
all through the heart of barbarous Africa — by mum- 
ming and carolling to tribes whose trade was mur- 
der and cannibalism. 


THE LOOTING OF THE “INDIAN SHERIFF’' 107 

He felt an infinite pity for himself when he re- 
flected that many a time nothing but a breakdown, 
or a loudly bawled hymn, or a series of twisted 
faces, had been the only thing which stood between 
him and the cooking fires. But there was no help 
for it. He was a fighting man, but he could not 
do battle with a continent; and so he had either 
to take the only course which remained, and lower 
himself (as he considered it) to the level of the 
music-hall pariah, and mouth and mow to amuse 
the mob, or else accept the alternative which even 
the bravest of men might well shrink from in dis- 
may. 

His travel through the black heart of this black 
continent may have been paralleled by that of other 
obscure heroes who voyaged from grim necessity and 
not for advertisement, but the history of it, as it 
was told me in his simple log-book style, far sur- 
passes the wonder of any of those travels which 
find a place in published volumes. He had started, 
a completely destitute man, from a spot far up on 
the Haut Congo, amidst treacherous hostile popu- 
lation. He had not a friend in Africa, black or 
white. He had no resources save his tongue, his 
thews, an empty revolver, and his mother wit, 
and yet he had won a slow way down to the west- 
ern seaboard through a hundred hostile tribes, 
where an army would have been eaten up, and a 
Marco Polo might well have failed. 

It would suit my pleasure finel^^ to write of this 
terrific journey, with its dangers, its finesses, and 
its infinite escapes ; it would gratify me to the quick 
if I might belaud to the full of my appreciation the 
endurance, and the grand resourcefulness, of this 
little sailor cast so desperately out of his more 


108 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


native element; but the account of the travel is 
reserved for the pen of Captain Kettle himself, and 
so the more professional scribe may not poach upon 
his territory. 

I had it from his own lips that the perils of the 
way made him see the poetry of it all, and he said 
to himself that here was the theme for that great 
epic, which would be the chef d oeuvre oi his literary 
life. It is to be written in blank verse, with the 
hymns and secular songs he sang at each stop 
given in an appendix, and he confidently hopes that 
it will stand out as something conspicuous and 
distinct against the sombre background of prosaic 
travel books. 

His arrival at the coast was an achievement that 
made him almost faint with joy. Xenophon and 
his ten thousand Greeks hailed the sea, we are told, 
with a mighty shout. But to them Thalassa was 
merely a way-mark, a sign that they were nearing 
home. To Kettle it was more, far more, although 
he could not define the relationship. He had dwelt 
upon the sea the greater part of his days; he had 
got his meagre living from her ; and although at all 
times she had been infinitely hard and cruel to him, 
and he had cursed her day in and day out with all 
a seaman’s point and fluency, she had wrapped 
herself into his being in a way he little guessed, till 
separation showed him the truth. 

He had seen the glint of her through the trees as 
he entered this last village of his march, but the 
air was too dull with heat for him to catch so 
much as a whiff of her refreshing saltness, and for 
the present he could not go down to greet her. He 
was still the lonely troubadour, dressed in a native 
cloth around the loins, with a turban of rags upon 


THE LOOTING OF THE “INDIAN SHERIFF” 


109 


his head, and a battered accordion slung from his 
back, come in from afar to sing and pull faces for 
a dinner. 

The meal, for reasons which have been stated, 
was not a success, but payment had to be rendered 
all the same. He sang with noise, and made antics 
such as experience had taught him would be accept- 
able; and the audience, to whom a concert of this 
kind was a rarity, howled to him to go on. There 
was no escape. He had to sing till he could sing 
no more. It was far on into the night when a cou- 
ple of native tom-tom players rescued him. The mu- 
sical appetites of the village had been whetted rather 
than appeased, and as no more could be got out of 
this wandering minstrel, why then they were quite 
ready to listen to local instruments and melody. 

Dancing commenced, and the heat and the noise 
grew, and presently Kettle managed to slip away 
and walk out through the yam and manioc gardens, 
and the banana groves, to the uproarious beach 
beyond. He threw himself wearily down on the 
warm white sand, and when the great rollers 
swept in and crashed into noisy bellowing surf, the 
spindrift from it drove on him, and refreshed him 
luxuriously. It was almost worth going through 
all he had suffered to enjoy the pleasures of that 
greeting. 

For long enough he filled his eye on the creaming 
fringes of the surf, and then he glanced over it at 
the purple plain of ocean which lay level and un- 
ruffled beyond. A great African moon glowed above 
it in the night, and the lonely vastness of it all 
gratified him like the presence of a friend. “You 
are a decent old puddle,” he murmured to himself, 
“though I say it that’s got precious little from 


110 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


you beyond mud and slashing. It’s good to be 
back in reach of the stink of you again.” 

He lay on where he was deep into the night, 
revelling in the companionship of the sea, till the 
many-colored land-crabs began to regard him as 
mere jetsam. He was not consciously thinking. 
He was letting his mind rest in an easy torpor; 
but from time to time he let his eyes range through 
the purple dark with a seaman’s mechanical watch- 
fulness. The noise of the tom-toms and the dancing 
from the village behind him had died away, and 
nothing but the sounds from the bush, and the din 
of the surf, remained to show that the world was 
alive. The moon, too, had been smothered by a 
cloud bank, and night lay huddled close round him, 
with a texture like black velvet. 

Then, with a jump he was on his feet, and trem- 
bling violently. Another old friend was in his neigh- 
borhood— a steamer. Her masthead light had just 
twinkled into view. He got up and began walking 
nervously toward her along the hard, white sands. 
He saw her first in the northwest, coming from 
some port in the Bight of Biafra probably, and the 
odds were she was heading south along the Coast. 

Presently he pieked up her red port light. Yes, he 
admitted to himself with a sigh, she was making 
for one of the ports to southward, for Sette Camma 
perhaps, or Loango, or Landana, or Kabenda, and 
he calmed himself down with the discovery. Had 
she been heading north, he had it in him to have 
swum out to her through the surf and the sharks, 
and chanced being picked up. He was sick of this 
savage Africa which lay behind him. The sight of 
those two lights, the bright white, and the duller 
red, let him know how ravenous was his hunger to 


THE LOOTING OF THE “INDIAN SHERIFF” 


111 


see once more a white man and a white man’s ship, 
and to feel the sway of a deck, and to smell the 
smells of oil, and paint, and Christian cookery, 
from which he had been for such a weary tale of 
days divorced. 

The steamer drew on till she came a-beam, and the 
red port light was eclipsed, and “carrying no stern 
light,’’ was Captain Kettle’s comment. There was a 
small glow from her deck and two or three of her 
ports were lit, but for the most part she crept along 
as a mysterious black ship voyaging into a region 
of blackness. It was too dark to make out more 
than her bare existence, but Kettle took a squint 
at the Southern Cross, which hung low in the sky 
like an ill-made kite, to get her bearings, and so 
made note of her course, and from that tried to 
deduce her nationality. 

From the way she was steering he reckoned she 
came from Batanga or Cameroons, which are in 
German territory, and so set her down as sailing 
originally from Marseilles or Hamburg, and anyway 
decided that she was not one of the Liverpool boats 
which carry all the West Coast trade to England. 
But as he watched, she seemed to slew out of her 
course. She lengthened out before him across the 
night, as her bows sheered in toward the land, till 
he saw her broadside on, and then she hung motion- 
less as a black blot against the greater blackness 
beyond. 

Captain Kettle summed the situation: “Rounded 
up and come to an anchor. There’ll be a factory 
somewhere on the beach there. But I don’t know, 
though. That one-eyed head-man said nothing 
about a factory, and if there was one, why doesn’t 
she whistle to raise ’em up so’s they’d be ready to 


112 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


bring off their bit o’ trade in the surf-boats when 
da3^ breaks?” 

A cloud slid away in the sky, and the moon shone 
out like the suddenly opened bulb of a dark lantern. 
The oily surface of the sea flashed up into sight, and 
on it sat the steamer — a picture in black and silver. 
She lay there motionless as the trees on the beach, 
and the reason for her state was clear. Her forefoot 
soared stifily aloft till it was almost clear of the 
water ; her stern was depressed ; her decks listed to 
port till it was an acrobatic feat to make passage- 
way along them. 

Captain Kettle whistled to himself long and dis- 
mally. “Piled her up,” he muttered, “that’s what 
her old man has done. Hit a half-ebb reef, and 
fairly taken root there. He’s not shoved on his 
engines astern either, and that means she’s ripped 
away half her bottom, and he thinks she’ll founder 
in deep water if he backs her off the ground.” A 
tiny spit of flame, pale against the moonlight, jerked 
out from under the awnings of the steamer’s upper 
bridge. The noise of the shot came some time after- 
ward, no louder than the cracking of a knuckle. 
“By James! somebody’s getting his gun into use^ 
pretty quick. Well, it’s some one else’s trouble, and 
not mine, and I guess I’m going to stay on the 
beach, and watch, and not meddle.” He frowned 
angrily as though some one had made a suggestion 
to him. “No, by James! I’m not one of those that 
seeks trouble unnecessarily.” 

But all the same he walked off briskly along the 
sand, keeping his eyes fixed on the stranded steamer. 
That some sort of a scuffle was going on aboard of 
her was clear from the shouts and the occasional 
pistol shots, which became louder as he drew more 


THE LOOTING OF THE “INDIAN SHERIFF” 


113 


near; and Captain Kettle, connoisseur as he was of 
differences of this sort on the high seas, became 
instinctively more and more interested. And at last 
when he came to a small canoe drawn up on the 
beach above high-water mark, he paused beside it 
with a mind loaded with temptation as deep as it 
would carry. 

The canoe was a dug-out, a thing of light cotton- 
wood, with washboards forward to carry it through 
a surf. A couple of paddles and a calabash formed 
its furniture, and its owner probably lived in the 
village where he had sung for his dinner overnight. 
Of course, to borrow her — merely to borrow her, of 
course — without permission was 

Another splatter of pistol shots came from the 
steamer, and a yelping of negro voices. Captain 
Kettle hesitated no longer. He laid hands on the 
canoe’s gunwale, and ran her down into the edge 
of the surf. He had barely patience to wait for a 
smooth, but, after three rollers had roared them- 
selves into yeast and quietude, he ran his little craft 
out till the water was arm-pit deep, and then 
scrambled on board and paddled furiously. 

But it is not given to the European to equal the 
skill of the black on African surf beaches, and, as 
might be expected, the next roller that swooped in 
overended the canoe, and sent it spinning like a toy 
through the broken water. But Captain Kettle had 
gained some way; and if he could not paddle the 
little craft to sea, he could at least swim her out; 
and this he proceeded to do. He was as handy as 
an otter in the water, and besides, there was some- 
thing here which was dragging him to seaward very 
strongly. His soul lusted for touch with a steamer 
again with a fierceness which he did not own even 
8 


114 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


to himself. Even a wrecked steamer was a thing of 
kinship to him then. 

He swam the dug-out through the last drench and 
backtow of the surf, rocked her clear from part of 
her watery load, and then, with a feeling of relief, 
clambered gingerly on board and baled the rest over 
the gunwale with his hands. It is not good to stay 
over-long in these seas which fringe the West African 
beaches, by reason of the ground shark which makes 
them his hunting-ground. And then he manned the 
paddle, knelt in the stem, and went the shortest 
way to the steamer which perched on the rock. 

The moon was still riding in the sky, but burnt 
with a pale light now, as dawn had jumped up 
from behind the shore forests. All things were 
shown clearly. Among other matters, Kettle noted 
from trifles in her garnishing, which read clear as 
print to a seaman’s eye, that the steamer was not 
French or German as he had guessed before, but 
hailed from his own native islands. Moreover, her fun- 
nel told him that she was not one of the two regular 
lines from Liverpool, which do all the commerce of 
the coast. But he had no time for fresh speculations 
just then as to her business. The scuffling on board 
had been growing more and more serious, and it 
was clear that the blacks of her complement were 
giving the whites more than they cared about. 

Kettle knew enough of the custom of the Coast 
to be able to sum the situation. “Her Krooboys 
have broken out of hand,” he commented. “That’s 
what’s the trouble. You come down here from 
England with just enough white men to handle your 
vessel to Sierra Leone, and then you ship Krooboys 
to work cargo and surf-boats, and do everything 
except steer, and as long as nothing happens, your 


THE LOOTING OF THE “INDIAN SHERIFF” 


115 


Krooboy is a first-class hand. Two cupfuls of rice 
and a bit of fish is all the grub he wants ; he’ll work 
sixteen hours a day without a grunt; and he’ll 
handle a wineh or a steam erane with any Geordie 
donkey-man that has been grounded in the shops. 
But just put your steamboat on the ground where 
he thinks she can’t get off, and there’s a different 
tune to play. He’s got a notion that the ship’s his, 
and the cargo’s his, to loot as he likes, and if he 
doesn’t get ’em both, he’s equal to making trouble. 
Seems to me he’s making bad trouble now.” 

By this time it was plain that the blaek men had 
got entire possession of the lower parts of the ship. 
The small handful of whites were on the top of the 
fiddley, and while most were fighting to keep the 
Africans back, a couple were frenziedly working to 
get a pair of davits swung outboard, and a life- 
boat which hung from them lowered into the water. 
It was elear they had given up all hope of standing 
by the ship; and presently they got the boat 
afloat, and slid down to her in hurried elusters by 
the davit falls, and then unhooked and rowed away 
from the steamer’s side in a skelter of haste. Coals 
and any other missile that came handy were show- 
ered upon them by the Krooboys who manned the 
rail, to which they replied with a few vicious re- 
volver shots ; and then the boat drew out of range. 

Captain Kettle, in his clumsy canoe, paddled up 
close to her and nodded, and gave the boat’s people 
a “good-morning.” The greeting was quaintly 
enough out of place, but nobody seemed to notiee 
that. Each party was too occupied in staring at 
the other. Those in the lifeboat saw a little lean 
European, naked to the waist, clad only in a turban 
and native cloth, and evidently (from the color of 


116 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


his skin) long inured to that state. Kettle saw a 
huddle of fugitives, all of them scared, and many of 
them bloody with wounds. 

The man who was steering the white boat, the 
steamer’s mate he was, according to the gold lace 
on his cuff, spoke first. 

“Well,” he said, “you’re a funny enough looking 
beachcomber. What do you want, anyway?” 

Captain Kettle felt himself to redden all over under 
the tan of his skin. Neatness in clothes was always 
a strong point with him, and he resented the bar- 
barism of his present get-up acutely. “If I wanted 
a job at teaching manners, I could find one in your 
boat, that’s certain,” was his prompt retort. “And 
when I’d finished with that, I could give some of 
you a lesson in pluck without much harm being 
done. I wonder if you call yourselves white men 
to let a crowd of niggers clear you out of your ship 
like that?” 

“Now, look here, Robinson Crusoe,” said the man 
at the steering oar, “our tempers are all filed up on 
the raw edge just now, and if you give much lip, 
this boat will be rowed over the top of your Noah’s 
ark before you know what’s hit it. You paddle 
back to your squaw and piccaninnies on the beach, 
Robinson, and don’t you come out here to mock 
your betters when they’re down on their luck. 
We’ve nothing to give you except ugly words, and 
you’ll get them cheap.” 

“Well, Mr. Mate,” said Kettle, “I haven’t heard 
white man’s English for a year, but if 3^ou can teach 
me anything new, I’m here to learn. I’ve come 
across most kinds of failure in my time, but a white 
man who lets himself be kicked off his ship bj^ a 
parcel of Krooboys, and who disgraces Great Britain 


THE LOOTING OF THE “INDIAN SHERIFF’ 117 

by being a blooming Englishman, is a specimen 
that’s new to me. But perhaps I’m making a mis- 
take? Perhaps you’re a Dutchman or a Dago that’s 
learnt the language? Or perhaps, to judge from 
that cauliflower nose of yours, you’re something 
that’s escaped out of a freak museum? You haven’t 
a photo about you by any chance? I’d like to send 
one home to South Shields. My Missis is a great 
hand at collecting curiosities which you only see in 
foreign parts.” 

The mate bent on the steering gear with sudden 
violence, turned the lifeboat’s head with a swirl, and 
began sculling her toward the canoe. But a tall, 
thin man sitting beside him in the stern-sheets said 
something to him in an undertone, and the Mate 
reluctantly let the oar drag limp in the water, and 
sat himself down, and ostentatiously made ready 
to roll a cigarette. 

“Now, look here,” said the tall man, “I don’t 
suppose you want to quarrel.” 

“I’ve been in quarrels before for the sheer fun of 
the thing,” said Kettle, who was determined that at 
any rate no apology should come from his side. 

“So have I,” said the tall man, “but I’ve no time 
for empty amusement just now. I’m down here on 
business. I’m trying to start a new steamer line 
to work this Coast and get away the monopoly 
from the other companies. That boat stuck yonder 
— the Indian Sheriff she’s called— is my venture, and 
she represents about all I’ve got, and she isn’t 
underwritten for a sixpence. I’ve been going nap or 
nothing on this scheme, and at present it looks 
uncommon like nothing. What I’m anxious about 
now, is to see if I can’t make some arrangement for 
salvage.” 


118 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


“I can understand it would be useful to you.” 

“It might be useful to others besides me. Now, 
there’s you, for instance. I dare say you’ve got a 
nice little establishment ashore, and some simple 
comforts, and a bit of influence in your \dllage. But 
you spoke about your wife at home in South Shields 
just now, and I make no doubt that if you’d got a 
tidy sum of money in your pocket you’d be as 
pleased as not to get home to her again?” 

Captain Kettle was on the point of breaking out 
into explanations and disavowals, but a thought 
came to him, and he refrained. 

“Well,” he said, “I’m waiting to hear your offer.” 

“Here it is, then. You go ashore now, raise your 
village, bring off every nigger you can scare up, 
swamp the Krooboys on that steamboat and keep 
her from being looted, and I solemnly promise you 
25 per cent, of her value and the value of what she 
has in her.” 

“Yes,” said Kettle thoughtfully. “That’s a square 
enough offer, and it’s made before witnesses, and I 
believe the courts would make you stick to it.” 

“Ho!” grunted the Mate, “Robinson’s a sea law- 
yer, is he? Courts, he talks about.” 

Kettle ignored the suggestion. “Should I know 
your name, sir?” he asked of the tall man. 

“I’m Nicholson Sheriff. If you know Liverpool, 
you’ll have heard of me.” 

“You were with Ke vend ales?” 

“That’s me. I left there two years ago, to start 
on my own.” 

“H’m,” said the little sailor in the canoe. “I was 
master of one of Kevendale’s ships once. It was me 
that had misfortune with the Armenia.'^ 

“By gum! are you Captain Kettle that piled up 


THE LOOTING OF THE “INDIAN SHERIFF” 119 

the old Atrocity on that iceberg? I’m sorry to see 
you come down to this, Captain.” 

“Captain Kettle,” said the sulky Mate, “that was 
in the Congo Pilot Service?” 

“Yes,” said Kettle. 

“Then, Captain,” said the Mate, “I take back 
what I said about you being Robinson Crusoe. You 
may have met with misfortune, but, by the Lord, 
you’re a man all the way through. You’ve made 
the ports down there on the Congo just ring with 
the way you kept your end up with those beastly 
Belgians. And now when any Englishman goes 
ashore at Boma or Matadi or any place on the river, 
they’re fit to eat him.” 

The compliment had its doubtful side, but Kettle 
bowed with pleasure. “Mr. Mate,” he said, “I 
should have been more polite to you. I forgot you 
were a man who had just come through an anxious 
time.” 

“Anxious time! My holy grandmother! You 
should have just seen. It was my watch below 
when she took the ground, and I give you my word 
for it, there’s deep water marked in the chart where 
she struck. Third mate had the bridge, and he 
rang for engines hard astern. Nothing happened. 
From the first moment she hit, the Krooboys got 
the notion she was their ship by all the rules 
of the Coast, and they played up to that tune like 
men. They bashed in the heads of the two engineers 
who tried to handle the reversing gear, and fairly 
took the ship below; and when the old man came 
out in his pyjamas and started his fancy shooting 
on deck, they just ran in on him and pulled him 
into kybobs. 

“The second mate pegged out a week ago with 


120 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


black-water fever. So there was only me and Mr. 
Sheriff here, and the third left that were worth 
counting.” He wagged a stubby finger contemptu- 
ously at the rest of his boat’s erew. “Half this 
erowd don’t know enough English to take a wheel, 
and the rest of them eome from happy Dutchland, 
where they don’t make soldiers, bless their silly eyes. 
I ean tell you I’m not feeling sweet about it myself. 
I left a bran new suit of clothes and an Aeera finger- 
ring on that blame’ ship.” 

“Well, never mind the rest of the tale now,” said 
Sheriff. “Here we are kicked overboard, and glad 
enough to save our bare skins, I’ll own. We won’t 
go into the question of manning British ships with 
foreigners just now. What’s interesting me is the 
fact that those Krooboys have got hatches off al- 
ready, and are standing by the eranes and winches. 
I’ve seen them work eargo before all up and down 
the coast, and know the paee they can put into it, 
and if we don’t move quiek they’ll seoff that ship 
elear down to the eeilings of her holds.” A wineh 
chain rattled, and a sling load of eloth bales swung 
up to one of her derrick sheaves. “My faith, look 
at that! They’ve begun to broaeh cargo by now, 
and there are some of the beggars setting to lower 
the surf-boats to ferry it on to the beach.” 

The Mate rapped out sulphurous wishes for the 
Krooboys’ future state. 

“Yes, yes,” said Sheriff, “but we’re wasting time. 
Come now. Captain, you heard my offer, and you 
seemed to like it. I’m waiting for you to fill your 
part of the bargain. Away with j^ou ashore, and 
bring off your army and take possession.” 

“I’m afraid, sir,” said Kettle honestly, “you’ve 
been taking a little too mueh for granted. I’ve got 


THE LOOTING OF THE “INDIAN SHERIFF” 121 

no establishment ashore. I’m just what you see — a 
common tramp, or worse, seeing that I’ve been 
play-acting for my dinners of late. And as for any 
help those niggers ashore could give, why, I 
shouldn’t recommend it. The one-eyed old son of a 
dog who’s head-man, has served on ships according 
to his own telling, and he’ll have the same notions 
about loot as your own Krooboys. The Coast 
nigger hereabouts has got a fancy that any ship on 
the beach is cumshaw for himself, and you’ll not 
knock it out of him without some hard teaching. 
No, Mr. Sheriff, to call in that one-eyed head-man 
and his friends — who it makes me hot to think I 
had to sing and dance to not six hours back — would 
only pile up the work ahead of us. Much best tackle 
the ship as she is.” 

“What!” said Sheriff. “Do you mean to say we 
can retake her? You don’t know what those boys 
are like. I tell you they were fair demons when we 
left, and they’ll be worse now, because they are 
certain to have got liquor inside them by this. It’s 
not a bit of use your counting on these deck-hands 
and stokers in the boat. They’re not a penn’oth of 
use, the whole lot of them.” 

“Well,” said Kettle diffidently, “I’d got my eye on 
that packet of cartridge beside you on the thwart. 
If they were four-fiftys ” 

“They are — let’s look — four — five — nought. Yes, 
well?” 

Captain Kettle pulled a well-cleaned revolver out 
of his waist-cloth. “I’ve carried this empty for a 
whole year now, sir, but I don’t think I’ve forgot 
my shooting.” 

“I can speak here,” said the Mate. “I’ve heard of 
his usefulness that way on the Congo. When Cap- 


122 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


tain Kettle lets off his gun, Mr. Sheriff, it’s a funeral. 
By gum, if he’s a way of getting the ship again, 
I’m on for helping. Look! There’s that steward’s 
boy. Tins, going into my room this minute. I’ve a 
suit of clothes there that have never been put on, 
and he’ll have them for a cert if we don’t look 
quick.” 

“Now then. Captain,” said Sheriff, “if there’s any- 
thing going to be done, get a move on you.” 

Kettle paddled the dug-out alongside, and stepped 
into the lifeboat. His eye glittered as he tore open 
the wrapping of the cartridges and reloaded his 
revolver. It was long since he had known the com- 
placent feel of the armed man. 

“Now,” he said, “there’s one more thing. I’m not 
in uniform, but I hold a master’s ticket, and I’ve 
got to be skipper.” 

“You can take the berth for me,” said the Mate. 
“I’ll say outright it’s a lot above my weight.” 

“And I’ve offered it to you already,” said Sheriff. 
“Go on, man, and give your orders.” 

Captain Kettle’s first desire was to get back to 
the steamer whence the boat had come, and this the 
mixed crew of foreigners at the oars had scruples 
about carrying out. But Kettle and the Mate got 
furiously at work on them with their hands, and in 
less than a minute the men were doing as they were 
bidden, except, that is, a trio who were too badly 
wounded to sit up, and who were allowed to wallow 
on the floor gratings. 

The Mate straddled in the stem and steered her 
with an oar, and the white painted boat pulled 
heavily toward the stranded vessel. The Krooboys 
in possession were quick to see her coming. A mob 
of them gathered on the bridge deck, gibbering and 


THE LOOTING OF THE “INDIAN SHERIFF” 123 

shouting, and threatening with their hands; and 
even before the boat drew within range, they eom- 
meneed a vigorous fusilade of eoal lumps. Kettle 
had all a cleanly man’s dislike for these dirty mis- 
siles, and he halted the boat just beyond the limit 
of their fire, and stood up himself, and sighted the 
revolver over the crook of his left elbow. 

He dropped one man, and the others raged at him. 
He dropped a second, and still with an impotent 
courage they stood their ground. He brought a 
third shrieking to the deck, and then, and not be- 
fore, did the others turn to run, and he shot a 
fourth to hurry their going. Then he turned to the 
rowers in the lifeboat. “Give way, you thieves,” 
he shouted at them; “set me aboard whilst the 
coast is clear. — Mr. Mate, round her up under those 
davit tackles.” 

Again the Krooboys tried to prevent the boarding, 
but again the fire of that terrible revolver drove 
them yelping to shelter, and the boat drew up with 
a bump and a swirl under the dangling ropes. 
Kettle clambered forward along the thwarts, and 
swarmed up one fall with a monkey’s quickness, and 
the Mate, a man of wooden courage, raced him up 
the other. Sheriff could not climb ; they had to haul 
him up the ship’s side by brute force in a bowline; 
and providentially they were allowed to do this 
uninterrupted. The foreign crew of the lifeboat, limp 
with scare, would have been mere slaughter-pigs on 
board even if they could have been lured there, 
which was improbable, and so they were bidden to 
haul off out of shot, and wait till they were needed. 

Now there was no question here of risking a hand- 
to-hand encounter. The Krooboys on board mus- 
ered quite fifty head, and most of them were men of 


124 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


enormous physical strength. So the three invaders 
went into the chart-house, from the ports of which 
they could command the bridge deck and the main 
fore deck, and shot the door-bolts by way of mak- 
ing themselves secure. The walls were of iron, and 
the roof was of iron; the place was a perfect strong- 
hold in its way; and as there was no chance of its 
being stormed without due notice, they tacitlj^ 
called a halt to recover breath. 

“Here,” said Sheriff, “is the poor old skipper’s 
whisky. I guess a second mate’s nip all round will 
do us no harm.” 

“Here,” said Kettle, “are the old man’s Canary 
cigars, nice and black and flavor3% and I guess one 
of them’s more in my line, sir, thanking you all the 
same. I haven’t come across a Christian smoke for 
more dreary months than I care to think about.” 

The Mate was peering through one of the forward 
ports. “There’s the door of my room wide open,” 
he grunted. “I bet those new clothes of mine are 
gone. They’re just the thing to take a nigger’s eye 
— good thick blue broadcloth.” 

Captain Kettle wiped the perspiration from his 
forehead with a bare, sinewy arm. “Now,” he said, 
“enough time’s been wasted. We must keep those 
toughs on the move, or they’ll find leisure to think, 
and be starting some fresh wickedness.” 

“If we go out of this chart-house,” said Sheriff 
doubtfully, “they’ll swamp us by sheer weight. You 
must remember we’ve only got two pistols, yours 
and mine. The poor old skipper’s is lost.” 

“I’m going to try what a little quiet talking-to 
will do first, sir. I used to be a bit useful with my 
tongue, if I haven’t lost the trick. But before that, 
I’m going to borrow this white drill coat and pants 


THE LOOTING OF THE “INDIAN SHERIFF” 125 

of your late old man’s, if you don’t mind. You’d 
hardly think it, sir, if you knew the trials I’ve gone 
through in that beastly Africa, but I believe it’s the 
want of a decent pair of trousers that’s hurt me 
more than anything.” 

Captain Kettle dressed himself with care, and put 
on a white-covered uniform cap; and then, happen- 
ing to see a pair of scissors, he took them up and 
trimmed his beard before the glass. Sheriff looked 
on at these preparations with fidgeting impatience, 
and from without there was a clamor of negro 
voices taking counsel. But the little sailor was not 
to be hurried. He went through his toilet with 
solemn deliberation, and then he opened the chart- 
house door and went out beneath the baking sun- 
shine of the bridge-deck beyond. 

A cluster of Krooboys stood at the further end of 
it, cackling with talk, and at sight of him they 
called their friends on the main deck below, who 
began to come up as fast as they could get foot on 
the ladders. They showed inclinations for a rush, 
but Kettle held up his left hand for them to keep 
back, and they obeyed the order. They saw that 
vicious revolver gripped in his right fingers, and 
they respected its powers. 

He addressed them with a fine fluency of language. 
He had a good command of sailor’s English, and 
also of Coast English, both of which are specially 
designed for forcible comment; and he knew, more- 
over, scraps from a score of native dialects, which, 
having Arabic for a groundwork, are especially rich 
in those parts of speech which have the highest 
vituperative value. The black man is proverbially 
tough, and a whip, moral or physical, which will 
cut the most hardened of whites to ribbons, will 


126 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


leave liim unmoved. An artist in words may rail 
at him for an hour without making him flicker an 
eyelash, or a Yankee mate might hammer him with 
a packing-case lid (always supposing there was no 
nail in it) for a like period without jolting from 
him so much as a cry or a groan. And so I think 
it speaks highly for Captain Kettle’s powers when, 
at the end of three minutes’ talk, he caused many 
of those Krooboys to visibly wince. 

You cannot touch a Krooboy’s feelings by referring 
insultingly to his mother, because he has probably 
very dim recollections of the lady ; you can not rile 
him by gibing comments on his personal appearance ; 
but still there are ways of getting home to him, and 
Kettle knew the secret. “You make fight-palaver,” 
he said, “you steal, you take ship, you drink cargo 
gin, and you think your JuJ-u fine ju-ju. But my 
ju-ju too-plenty-much better, and I fit for show it 
you again if dis steal-palaver no stop one-time.” 

They began to move threateningly toward him. 
“Very well,” he said, “then I tell you straight ; you 
no fit to be called black boys. You bushmen. Bah! 
you be bushmen.” 

The maddened Krooboys ran in, and the wicked 
revolver spoke out, and then Kettle nipped into the 
deck-house and slammed the door to on his heels. 
The black ape-like faces jabbered and mowed at the 
window ports, and brawny arms were thrust in, 
grappling viciously, but the Mate drew out camp- 
stools from a locker, and with these the three white 
men stabbed and hit at every face or arm which 
showed itself. There was no more shooting, and 
there was no need for it. By sheer weight of blows 
the whites kept the enemy from climbing through 
the windows, and so long as the windows were not 


THE LOOTING OF THE “INDIAN SHERIFF” 127 

stormed, the iron house was safe to them. And 
presently one of the head-men blew his boatswain’s 
whistle, and the attack drew off. 

Promptly Kettle reloaded his revolver and stepped 
out into the open. “Now,” he said, “you seen my 
ju-ju? You savvy him too-hig ju-ju? You want any 
more of it? No. Then get away aft with you. You 
hear? You lib for bottom deck back there, one- 
time.” He rushed at them, one slight, slim, white- 
clad white man against all that reeking, shining 
mob, and they struggled away before him in 
grotesque tumblings and jostlings, like a flock of 
sheep. 

But at the break of the deck he paused and looked 
below him, and the fight all dropped away from his 
face. No. 3 hatch lay open before him, with the 
covers thrown here and there. From it was creeping 
up a thin blue smoke, with now and then a scarlet 
trail of flame. Here was a complication. 

“So you gluttonous, careless brutes have set fire 
to her, have you? Here, who was in the engine 
room?” 

Discipline was coming back. A man in black 
trousers, with a clout round his neck, stepped out. 

“You? Well, slip below, and turn steam into the 
donkey.” 

“Steam no lib, sar. Cranes die when we try to 
work him just now.” 

“Oh, you holy crowd of savages! Well, if we 
can’t use the hose, you must hand buckets— and 
sharp, too. That fire’s gaining. Now then, head- 
men, step out.” 

“I second head-man, sar.” 

“I head-man, sar.” 

“Get buckets, tubs, tins— anything that’ll hold 


128 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


water, and look sharp. If you boys work well now, 
I’ll overlook a lot that’s been done. If you don’t, 
I’ll give you fits. Try and get below, some of you, 
and pull away what’s burning. Probably you’ll 
find some of your dear relations down there, drunk 
on gin and smoking pipes. You may knock them 
on the head if you like, and want to do a bit more 
murder. They deserve it.” 

But though half a dozen of the Krooboys, who 
were now thoroughly tamed, tried to get down the 
hatch, the fire was too strong for them. Even the 
water when it came did little to check the burning, 
for though it sent up great billows of steam, the 
flames shot out fiercer and higher every moment. 
In that sweltering climate it does not take very 
much inducement to make a fire settle down thor- 
oughly to work, once it gets anything like a toler- 
able start. 

To add to the trouble, news of the wreck had been 
carried to the village behind the beach where Cap- 
tain Kettle had sung for his lodging over-night, and 
the one-eyed head-man there and his friends were 
coming off to share in the spoil as fast as canoes 
could bring them. Thej^, too, would have their 
theories as to the ownership of wrecked cargoes on 
the West African Coast, and as they were possessed 
of trade guns, they were not like to forego what 
they considered their just rights without further 
fighting. 

But as it happened, a period was put to the scene 
on the steamer with considerable suddenness . Sheriff, 
who had been making sure that there were no 
Krooboys lurking forward who could take them 
from the rear, came up and looked upon the fire 
with a blanched face. “Excuse me, Skipper,” he 


THE LOOTING OF THE “INDIAN SHERIFF” 


129 


said, and turned and bawled for the lifeboat to come 
alongside. 

“No hurry for that yet,” said Kettle, angrily. 
“Don’t scare the men, sir. And don’t you give 
orders without my sanction. You made me Captain 
here, and, by James! Captain I’ll be. We’re handi- 
capped for want of the hose, but we’re going to try 
and get this fire under without. Anyway, there’s 
no question of leaving the ship yet.” 

“Good God, man, don’t niggle about that now. 
I know what I’m saying. There’s eight tons of 
powder in that hold.” 

“And we may be blown up against the sky as a 
thin kind of rain any minute? Well, sir, you’re 
owner, and as you seem to have acted as purser on 
board, you ought to know. But hadn’t we better 
ask the Mate for his cargo-book first, so as to make 
sure?” 

He turned and looked, but Sheriff had gone, and 
was sliding down into the lifeboat which had come 
alongside. “Well, I don’t like leaving the ship, and 
I suppose for that matter he wouldn’t either, being 
owner, and being uninsured. But as Mr. Sheriff’s 
gone in such a blazing hurry, it’s probably time for 
me to go too, if I’m to land home any time in 
South Shields again.” He hailed the lower deck 
with a sharp order. “You boys, there, knock off. 
Knock off work, I say, and throw down your 
buckets. There’s powder stowed down below, and 
it’ll be going off directly. Gunpowder, you savvy, 
shoot-powder, go £zz—hoosh — hangV^ 

There was a sharp clatter of understanding and 
explanation, but no movement. The African is not 
great at making deductions. Captain Kettle had to 
give a definite order. “Now, overboard with you, 
9 


130 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


all hands, and lib for beach. No time for lower 
boats. You all fit for swim.” 

They took the hint, and began leaping the bul- 
wark rail like a swarm of black frogs. “Good- 
by, boys,” he said, in valediction. “You’ll find it 
cheaper to be good and virtuous next time. You 
haven’t stay enough in you for a real good fight.” 
And then he went to where the davits dangled over 
the water, and slid down to the boat, while the 
frightened crew cursed him aloud for keeping them 
waiting. 

Not much was said as they rowed away. The 
all-nation rowers were openly terrified; the Mate 
had all his attention used up in steering to a hair; 
and Sheriff sat with his shoulders humped beside 
his ears in the position of a man who expects a 
blow. Captain Kettle held his peace. He knew 
that mere words could not urge the sweating crew 
to heavier effort, and he puffed at his treasured cigar 
as any smoker would who had been divorced from 
tobacco for so many a month, and does not know 
when he will meet with his next indulgence. 

And in due time the powder was fired, and the 
steamer was turned into a vast volcano of steam 
and smoke and flame, which vomited iron and 
human limbs, and which sent forth an air blast 
which drove the boat before it like the hurricane of 
a tornado. And then the debris from the sky 
foamed down into the water, and then there was 
a long, long silence. Save for some inconsiderable 
flotsam, the steamer and all that was in her had 
vanished eternally. The canoes from the village were 
paddling for the beach again. They were alone on 
a lonely sea. No man seemed to have a thought he 
wished to share. 


THE LOOTING OF THE “INDIAN SHERIFF” 


131 


The Mate was the first to speak. He patted a 
bundle whose outer housing was a pillow-case, 
which lay on the thwart beside him. “Well,” he 
said, “it’s been a close thing. I darn nearly lost 
those new clothes of mine.” 

“It might have been worse,” said Sheriff; “we 
might well all have been killed. But as it is,” he 
added with a sigh, “we’ve merely got to start fresh 
from the bottom again. Anyway, Kettle, I’m 
obliged to you for what you have done.” 

The little sailor frowned. “It’s kind of you, sir, 
to say that. But I hate being beaten. And it’s no 
excuse to say I did my best. I hadn’t figured on 
that fire and the powder, and that’s a fact.” 

“I wonder,” said the Mate thoughtfully, “which 
of those beggars scoffed that gold zodiac ring of 
mine. That steward’s boy. Tins, I expect. Took 
the ring and left the new blue suit. Well, by gum, 
they’re a funny lot, those boys.” 


CHAPTER VI 


THE WIRE-MILKERS 

“Look here,” said Sheriff, “you compel me to be 
brutal, but the fact is, they’ve had enough of you 
here in Lagos. So far as I can see, you’ve only got 
the choice of two things. You can have a free 
passage home to England as a Distressed Seaman 
by the next steamer, and you know what that 
means. The steamer gets paid a shilling a day, and 
grubs and berths you accordingly^, and you earn 
your ’bacca money by bumming around the galley 
and helping the cook peel spuds. Or else, if you 
don’t like that, you can do the sensible thing, and 
step into the billet I offer you.” 

“By James!” said Kettle, “who’s going to turn 
me out of Lagos; tell me that, sir?” 

“Don’t get wrathful with me. I’m only telling you 
what you’ll find out to be the square truth if you 
stay on long enough. The authorities here will be 
equal to handling you if you try to buck against 
them.” 

“But, sir, they have no right to touch me. This 
isn’t French territory, or German, or any of those 
clamped-down places. The town’s as English as 
Liverpool, and I’m a respectable man.” 

“The trouble of it is,” said Sheriff drily, “they say 
you are not. There are a limited number of white 
men here in Lagos — perhaps two hundred all told — 
and their businesses and sources of income are all 


THE WIRE-MILKERS 


133 


more or less visible to the naked eye. Yours aren’t. 
In the language of the— er— well— the poliee court, 
you’ve no visible means of subsistence, and yet you 
always turn out neat, and spruce, and tidy ; you’ve 
always got tobacco ; and apparently you must have 
meals now and again, though I can’t say you’ve 
got particularly fat on them.” 

“I’ve never been a rich man, sir. I’ve never earned 
high wages — only once as much as fifteen pounds 
a month — and there’s the missis and the family to 
provide for; and, as a consequence, I’ve never had 
much to spend on myself. It would surprise a 
gentleman who’s been wealthy like you, Mr. Sheriff, 
to see the way I can make half-a-crown spin out.” 

“It surprises me to see how you’ve made nothing 
at all spin out,” said Sheriff; “and as for the Lagos 
authorities I was speaking about, it’s done more; 
it’s made them suspicious. Hang it, man, be reason- 
able; you must see they are bound to be suspicious.” 

Captain Kettle’s brown face grew darker in tint, 
and he spoke with visible shame. “I’ve come by a 
living, sir, honest, but I couldn’t bear it to be told 
aloud here to all the world how it was done. I 
may be down, Mr. Sheriff, but I have my pride 
still.” 

Sheriff spread his hands helplessly. “That’s no 
kind of answer,” he said. “They won’t let you 
continue to stay here in Lagos on an explanation 
like that. Come now. Kettle, be sensible : put your- 
self in the authorities’ place. They’ve got a town 
to administer — a big town — that not thirty years 
ago was the most murderous, fanatical, rowdy 
dwelling of slave-traders on the West Coast of Af- 
rica. To-day, by dint of careful shepherding, they’ve 
reduced it to a city of quiet respectability, with a 


134 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


smaller crime rate than Birmingham; and in fact 
made it into a model town suitable for a story- 
book. You don’t see the Government much, but you 
bet it’s there, and you bet it isn’t asleep. You can 
bet also that the nigger people here haven’t quite 
forgotten the old days, and would like to be up to 
a bit of mischief every now and again, just for old 
association’s sake, which of course the Government 
is quite aware of. 

“Now there’s nothing that can stir up niggers 
into ructions against a white man’s government 
better than a white man, as has been proved tons 
of times already, and here are you already on the 
carpet quite equal to the job. I don’t say you are up 
to mischief, nor does the Government, but you must 
see for yourself that they’d be fools if they didn’t 
play for safety and ship you off out of harm’s way.” 

“I must admit,” said Kettle ruefully, “that there’s 
sense in what you say, sir.” 

“Are you going to give a free and open explana- 
tion of your means of employment here in Lagos, 
and earn the right to stay on openly, or are you 
going to still stick to the mysterious?” 

The little sailor frowned. “No, sir,” he said; “as 
I told you before, I have my pride.” 

“Very well, then. Now, are you going to be the 
Distressed Seaman, and be jeered at all the run 
home as you cadge round for your ’baccy money, 
or are you going to do the sensible thing, and step 
into this billet I’ve put in your way?” 

“You comer me.” 

“I’m glad to hear it, and let me tell you it hasn’t 
been for want of trying. Man, if I hadn’t liked you, 
I would not have taken all this trouble to put a 
soft thing ready to your hand.” 


THE WIRE-MILKERS 


135 


“I believe you want service out of me in return, 
sir,” said Kettle stiffly. 

Sheriff laughed. “You aren’t the handiest man in 
the world to get on with, and if I hadn’t been an 
easy-tempered chap I should have bidden you go 
to the deuce long enough ago. Of course, I want 
something out of you. A man who has just lost a 
fortune, and who is down on his luck like I am, 
can’t afford to go in for pure philanthropy without 
any possible return. But, at the same time, I’m 
finding you a job at fifty pound a month with a 
fortnight’s wages paid in advance, and I think you 
might be decently grateful. By your own telling, 
you never earned so much as four sovereigns a week 
before.” 

“The wages were quite to my taste from the be- 
ginning, sir; don’t think me ungrateful there. But 
what I didn’t like was going to sea without know- 
ing beforehand what I was expected to do. I didn’t 
like it at first, and I refused the job then; and if I 
take it now, being, as you say, cornered, you’re not 
to understand that it’s grown any the tastier to 
me.” 

“We shouldn’t pay a skipper a big figure like 
that,” said Sheriff drily, “if we didn’t want some- 
thing a bit more than the ordinary out of him. 
You may take it you are getting fifteen pounds a 
month as standard pay, and the extra thirty-five 
for condescending to sail with sealed orders. But 
what I told you at first I repeat now: I’ve got a 
partner standing in with me over this business, and 
as he insists on the whole thing being kept abso- 
lutely dark till we’re away at sea, I’ve no choice 
but to observe the conditions of partnership.” 

Some thirty minutes later than this, Mr. Sheriff 


136 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


got out of his ’rickshaw on the Marina and went 
into an office and inquired for Mr. White. One of 
the colored clerks (who, to do credit to his English 
education, affected to be utterly prostrated by the 
heat) replied with languor that Mr. White was up- 
stairs; upon which Sheriff, mopping himself with a 
handkerchief, went up briskly. 

White, a gorgeously handsome young Hebrew, read 
success from his face at once. “I can see you’ve 
hooked your man,” said he. “That’s good business ; 
we couldn’t have got another as good anywhere. 
Have a cocktail?” 

“Don’t mind if I do. It’s been tough work per- 
suading him. He’s such a suspicious, conscientious 
little beggar. Shout for your boy to bring the 
cocktail, and when we’re alone. I’ll tell you about 
it.” 

“I’ll fix up your drink myself, old man. Where’s 
the swizzle-stick? Oh, here, behind the Angostura 
bottle. And there’s a fresh lime for you — got a 
basket of them in this morning. Now 3^ou yarn 
whilst I play barmaid.” 

Mr. Sheriff tucked his feet on the arms of a long- 
chair and picked up a fan. He sketched in the ac- 
count of his embassage with humorous phrase. 

The Hebrew had been liberal with his cocktail. 
He said himself that he made them so beautifully 
that no one could resist a second; and so, with a 
sigh of gusto. Sheriff gulped down number two and 
put the glass on the floor. “No,” he said ; “no more. 
They’re heavenly. I’ll grant, but no more. We shall 
want very clear heads for what’s in front of us, and 
I’m not going to fuddle mine for a commencement. 
I can tell you we have been very nearly wrecked 
already. It was only by the skin of my teeth I 


THE WIRE-MILKERS 


137 


managed to collar Master Kettle. I only got him 
because I happened to know something about him.” 

“Did you threaten to get him into trouble over it? 
What’s he done?” 

“Oh, nothing of that sort. But the man’s got the 
pride of an emperor, and it came to my knowledge 
he’d been making a living out of fishing in the 
lagoon, and I worked on that. Look out of that 
window; it’s a bit glary with the sun full on, but 
do you see those rows of stakes the nets are made 
fast on? Well, one of those belongs to Captain 
Owen Kettle, and he works there after dark like a 
native, and dressed as one. You know he’s been 
so long living naked up in the bush that his hide’s 
nearly black, and he can speak all the nigger dialects. 
But I guessed he’d never own up that he’d come so 
low as to compete with nigger fishermen, and I 
fixed things so that he thought he’d have to tell 
white Lagos what was his trade, or clear out of 
the colony one-time. It was quite a neat bit of 
diplomacy.” 

“You have got a tongue in j^ou,” said White. 

“When a man’s as broke as I am, and as desper- 
ate, he does his best in talk to get what he wants. 
But look here, Mr. White, now we’ve got Kettle, 
I want to be off and see the thing over and finished 
<as soon as possible. It’s the first time I’ve been 
hard enough pushed to meddle with this kind of 
racket, and I can’t say I find it so savory that 
I’m keen on lingering over it.” 

The Jew shrugged his shoulders. “We are going 
for money,” he said. “Money is always hard to 
get, my boy, but it’s nice, very nice, when you^have 
it.” 

Keen though Sheriff was to get this venture put to 


138 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


the trial, brimming with energy though he might be, 
it was quite out of the question that a start could 
be made at once. A small steamer they had already 
secured on charter, but she had to be manned, 
coaled, and provisioned, and all these things are not 
carried out as quickly in Lagos as they would be 
in Liverpool, even though there was a Kettle in 
command to do the driving. And, moreover, there 
were cablegrams to be sent, in tedious cypher, 
to London and elsewhere, to make the arrange- 
ments on which the success of the scheme would 
depend. 

The Jew was the prime mover in all this cabling. 
He had abundance of money in his pocket, and he 
spent it lavishly, and he practically lived in the 
neighborhood of the telegraph office. He was as 
affable as could be; he drank cocktails and cham- 
pagne with the telegraph staff whenever they were 
offered ; but over the nature of his business he was 
as close as an oyster. 

A breath of suspicion against the scheme would 
wreck it in an instant, and, as there was money to 
be made by carrying it through, the easy, lively, 
boisterous Mr. White was probably just then as 
cautious a man as there was in Africa. 

But preparations were finished at last, and one 
morning, when the tide served, the little steamer 
cast off from her wharf below the Marina, and 
steered for the pass at the further side of the la- 
goon. 

The bar was easy, and let her through with 
scarcely so much as a bit of spray to moisten the 
dry deck planks, and Sheriff pointed to the masts 
of a branch-boat which had struck the sand a week 
before, and had beaten her bottom out and sunk in 


THE WIRE-MILKERS 


139 


ten minutes, and from these he drew good omens 
about this venture, and at the same time prettily 
complimented Kettle on his navigation. 

But Kettle refused to be drawn into friendliness. 
He coldly commented that luck and not skill was at 
the bottom of these matters, and that if the bar 
had shifted, he himself could have put this steamer 
on the ground as handily as the other man had 
piled up the branch-boat. He refused to come below 
and have a drink, saying that his place was on 
the bridge till he learned from observation that 
either of the two mates was a man to be trusted. 
And, finally, he inquired, with acid formality, as to 
whether his employers wished the steamer brought 
to an anchor in the roads, or whether they would 
condescend to give him a course to steer. 

Sheriff bade him curtly enough to “keep her going 
to the s’uth’ard,” and then drew away his partner 
into the stifling little chart-house. “Now,” he said, 
“you see how it is. Our little admiral up there is 
standing on his temper, and if he doesn’t hear the 
plan of campaign, he’s quite equal to making him- 
self nasty.” 

“I don’t mind telling him some, but I’m hanged 
if I’m going to tell him all. There are too many 
in the secret already, what with you and the two 
in London; and as I keep on telling you, if one 
whiff of a suspicion gets abroad, the whole thing’s 
busted, and a trap will be set that you and I will 
be caught in for a certainty.” 

“Poof! We’re at sea now, and no one can gossip 
beyond the walls of the ship. Besides Kettle is far 
too staunch to talk. He’s the sort of man who can 
be as mum as the grave when he chooses. But if 
you persist in refusing to trust him, well, I tell you 


140 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


that the thought of what he may be up to makes 
me frightened.” 

‘‘Now look here, my boy,” said White, “you force 
me to remind you that I’m senior partner here, and 
to repeat that what I say on this matter’s going 
to be done. I flatly refuse to trust this Kettle with 
the whole yarn. We’ve hired him at an exorbitant 
fee — bought him body and soul, in fact, as I’ve no 
doubt he very well understands — and to my mind 
he’s engaged to do exactly as he’s told, without 
asking questions. But as you seem set on it. I’ll 
meet you here; he may be told a bit. Fetch him 
down.” 

But as Kettle refused to come below, on the chilly 
plea of business, the partner went out under the 
awnings of the upper bridge, where the handsome 
White, with boisterous, open-hearted friendliness, 
did his best to hustle the little sailor into quick 
good humor. 

“Don’t blame me. Skipper, or Sheriff here either, 
for the matter of that, for making all this myster3\ 
We’re just a couple of paid agents, and the bigger 
men at the back insisted that we should keep our 
mouths shut till the right time. There’s nothing 
wrong with this caution, I’m sure you’ll be the 
first to say. You see they couldn’t tell from that 
distance what sort of man we should be able to 
pick up at Lagos. I guess they never so much as 
dreamed that we’d have the luck to persuade a 
chap like you to join.” 

“You are very polite, sir,” said Kettle formally. 

“Not a bit of it. I’m not the sort of boy to chuck 
civility away on an incompetent man. Now look 
here. Captain. We’re on for making a big pile in a 
very short time, and you can stand in to finger 


THE WIRE-MILKERS 


141 


your share if you’lf only take your whack of the 
work.” 

“There’s no man living more capable of hard work 
than me, sir, and no man keener to make a compe- 
tence. I’ve got a wife that I’d like to see a lot 
better off than I’ve ever been able to make her so 
far.” 

“I’m sure Mrs. Kettle deserves affluence, and please 
the pigs she shall have it.” 

“But it isn’t every sovereign that might be put 
in her way,” said the sailor meaningly, “that Mrs. 
Kettle would care to use.” 

“I guess I find every sovereign that comes to my 
fingers contains twenty useful shillings.” 

“I will take your word for it, sir. Mrs. Kettle 
prefers to know that the few she handles are cleanly 
come by.” 

Mr. White gritted his handsome teeth, shrugged 
his shoulders, and made as if he intended to go 
down off the bridge. But Sheriff stopped him. 
“We’d better have it out,” Sheriff suggested; “as 
well now as later.” 

“Put it in your own words, then. I don’t seem 
able to get started. You,” he added significantly, 
“know as well as I do what to say.” 

“Very well. Now, look here. Kettle. This mystery 
game has gone on long enough, and you’ve got to 
be put on the ground floor, like the rest of us. Did 
you ever dabble in stocks?” 

“No, sir.” 

“But you know what they are?” 

“I’ve heard the minister I sit under ashore give 
his opinion from the pulpit on the Stock Exchange, 
and those who do business there. The minister of 
our chapel, sir, is a man I always agree with.” 


142 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


This was sufficiently unpromising, but Sheriff went 
doggedly on. ‘T see your way of looking at it: 
the whole crowd of stock operators are a gang of 
thieves that no deeent man would care to touch?” 

“That’s much my notion.” 

“And they are quite unworthy of protection?” 

“They can rob one another to their heart’s con- 
tent for all I care.” 

Sheriff smiled grimly. “That’s what I wanted to 
hear you say, Captain. This cruise we are on now 
is not exactly a pleasure trip.” 

“I guessed that, of course, from the pay that 
was offered.” 

“What we are after is this: the Cape to England 
telegraph cable stops at several places on the road, 
and we want to get hold of one of the stations and 
work it for our own purposes for an hour or so. 
If we can do that, our partners in London will 
bring off a speculation in South African shares that 
will set the whole lot of us up for life.” 

“And who pays the piper? I mean where will the 
money for your profit come from?” 

White was quicker than Sheriff to grasp the sit- 
uation. “From inside the four walls of the Stock 
Exchange. S’elp me. Captain, you needn’t pity 
them. There are lots of men there, my friends too, 
who would have plaj^ed the game themselves if 
they had been sharp enough to think of it. We 
have to be pretty keen in the speeulation business 
if we want to make money out of it.” 

Captain Kettle buttoned his coat, and stepped to 
the further end of the bridge with an elaborate show 
of disgust. “You are on the Stoek Exchange your- 
self, sir?” 

“Er— connected with it, Captain.” 








“YOU IXSOLEXT LITTLE BLACKGUARD, A'OU DARE TO SPEAK TO 

ME LIKE THAT ! ” 


[Page 143. 



THE WIRE-MILKERS 


143 


“I can quite understand our minister’s opinion of 
stock gamblers now. Perhaps some day you may 
hear it for yourself. He’s a great man for visiting 
jails and carrying comfort to the afflicted.” 

“By gad!” said White, “you insolent little black- 
guard, you dare to speak to me like that I” 

“I use what words I choose,” said Kettle, trucu- 
lently. “I’d have said the same to your late King 
Solomon if I hadn’t liked his ways; but if I was 
pocketing his pay, I should have carried out his 
orders all the same.” He bent down to the voice 
hatch, and gave a bearing to the black quartermas- 
ter in the wheel-house below, and the little steamer, 
which had by this time left behind her the vessels 
transhipping cargo in the roads, canted off on a 
new course to the southward. 

“Hullo,” said Sheriff, “what’s that mean? Where 
are you off to now?” 

Kettle mentioned the name of a lonely island 
standing by itself in the Atlantic. 

But Sheriff and the Jew were visibly startled. 
Mr. Sheriff mopped at a very damp forehead with 
his pocket handkerchief. “Have you heard anything 
then?” he asked, “or did you just guess?” 

“I heard nothing before, or I should not have 
signed on for this trip, sir. But having come so far 
I’m going to earn out my pay. What’s done will 
not be on my conscience. The shipmaster’s blame- 
less in these matters ; it’s the owner who drives him 
that earns his punishment in the hereafter; and 
that’s sound theology.” 

“But how did you guess, man, how did you know 
where we were bound?” 

“A shipmaster knows cable stations as well as he 
knows owners’ agents’ offices ashore. Any fool who 


144 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


had been told your game would have put his finger 
on that island at once. That’s the loneliest place 
where the cable goes ashore all up and down the 
coast, and it isn’t British, and what more could 
you want?” 

With these meagre assurances. Messieurs Sheriff 
and White had to be content, as no others were 
forthcoming. Captain Kettle refused to be drawn 
into further talk upon the subject, and the pair went 
below to the stuffy little cabin more than a trifle 
disconsolate. “Well, here’s the man you talked so 
big about,” said White, bitterly. “As soon as we 
get out at sea, he shows himself in his true colors. 
Why, he’s a blooming Methodist. But if he sells us 
when it comes to the point, and there’s a chance of 
my getting nabbed, by gad I’ll murder him like I 
would a rat.” 

“If he offers a scrimmage,” said Sheriff, “you 
take my tip, and clear out. He’s a regular glutton 
for a fight ; I know he’s armed ; and he could shoot 
the buttons off your coat at twenty yards. No, 
Mr. White; make the best or the worst of Captain 
Kettle as you choose, but don’t come to fisticuffs 
with him, or as sure as you are living now, you’ll 
finish out on the under side then. And mind, I’m 
not talking by guess-work. I know.” 

“I shall not stick at much if this show’s spoiled. 
Why, the money was as good as in our pockets, if 
he hadn’t cut up awkward.” 

“Don’t throw up the sponge till some one else does 
it for you. Look here, I know this man Kettle a lot 
better than you do. He wants the pay very badly. 
And when it comes to sticking up the cable station, 
you’ll see him do the work of any ten like us. I tell 
you, he’s a regular demon when it comes to a scuffle.” 


THE WIRE-MILKERS 


145 


It was in this attitude, then, that the three prin- 
cipal members of the little steamer’s complement 
voyaged down over those warm tropical seas which 
lay between Lagos and the isle of their hopes and 
fears. Two of them kept together, and perfected the 
detail of their plans for use in every contingency ; but 
the other kept himself icily apart, and for an occu- 
pation, when the business of the ship did not require 
his eye, wrapped himself up in the labor of literary 
production. He even refused to partake of meals at 
the same table with his employers. 

The island first appeared to them as a huddle of 
mountains sprouting out of the sea, which grew 
green as they came more near, and which finall3^ 
showed great masses of foliage growing to the 
crown of the splintered heights, with a surf frilling 
the bays and capes at their foot. There was a town 
in the hug of one of these bays, and toward it 
the little steamer rolled as though she had been 
an ordinary legitimate trader. She brought up to 
an anchor in the jaws of the bay, half-way between 
the lighthouse and the rectangular white building 
on the further beach, and after due delay, a negro 
doctor, pulled up by a surf-boat full of other negroes, 
came off and gave her pratique. 

The rectangular white building, standing in the 
sea breeze by itself away from the town beyond, 
was the cable station, but for the present they 
faced it with their backs. Kettle had seen it before ; 
the other two acted as though it were the last 
thing to trouble their minds. There was no going 
ashore for any of them yet; indeed, the less they 
advertised their personal identity, the more chance 
there was of getting off untraced afterward. 

Night fell with such suddenness that one could 


146 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


almost have imagined the sun was permanently 
extinguished. Round the rim of the bay lights be- 
gan to kindle, and presently (when the wind came 
off the land) strains of music floated out to them. 

^‘Some saint’s day,” Sheriff commented. 

“St. Agatha’s,” said Kettle with a sigh. 

“Hello, Kettle. I thought you were a straight- 
laced chapel goer. What have you to do with saints 
and their days?” 

“I was told that one once, sir, and I can’t help re- 
membering it. You see the date is February 5th, 
and that’s my eldest youngster’s birthday.” 

Sheriff swore. “I wish you’d drop that sort of 
sentimental bosh. Skipper; especially now. I want 
to get this business over first, and then, when I go 
back with plenty in my pocket, I can begin to think 
of family pleasures and cares again. Come now, 
have you thought out what we can do with the 
steamer after we’ve finished our job here?” 

“Run up with the coast and sink her, and then 
go ashore in the surf-boat at some place where the 
cable doesn’t call, and leave that as soon as pos- 
sible for somewhere else.” 

“It will be a big saving of necks,” said Kettle 
drily. “Why sir, you’ve been a steamer-owner in 
your time, and you must know how we’re fixed. 
You’ve given up your papers here, and you’re known. 
You can’t go into another port in the whole wide 
world without papers, and as far as forging a new 
set, why that’s a thing that hasn’t been done this 
thirty years outside a story-book.” 

Mr. White came up to hear. “I don’t see that,” 
he said. 

“You fellows don’t understand everything in 
Jerusalem,” said Kettle, with a cheerful insult, and 


THE WIRE-MILKERS 


147 


walked away. Captain Kettle regarded Sheriff as a 
gull, and pitied him accordingly; but White he rec- 
ognized as principal knave, and disliked him accord- 
ingly. 

But when the start was made for the raid, some 
hour and a half before the dawn. Kettle was not 
backward in fulfilling his paid-for task. Himself 
he saw a surf-boat lowered into the water and 
manned by black Krooboy paddlers ; himself he saw 
his two employers down on the thwarts, and then 
followed them ; and himself he sat beside the head- 
man who straddled in the stern sheets at the steer- 
ing oar, and gave him minute directions. 

The boat was avoiding the bay altogether. She 
was making for the strip of sand in front of the 
cable station, and except when she was shouldered 
up on the back of a roller, the goal was out of 
sight all the time. 

“There ’s a rare swell running, and it’s a mighty 
bad beach to-night,” Kettle commented. ‘T hope 
you gentlemen can swim, for the odds are you’ll 
have to do it inside the next ten minutes.” 

“If we are spilt getting ashore,” said White, “how 
do you say we’ll get off again?” 

“The Lord knows,” said Kettle. 

“Well, you’re a cheerful companion, anyway.” 

“I wasn’t paid for a yacht skippering job and 
asked to say nice things which weren’t true. But 
if you don’t fancy the prospect, go back and try a 
trade that’s less risky. You mayn’t like honest 
work, but it strikes me this kind of contract’s out 
your weight anyway.” 

The Jew looked as if he would like to let loose 
his tongue, and perhaps handle a weapon, but his 
motto was “business first,” and he could not afford 

10 


148 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


to have an open fracas with Kettle then. So he 
swallowed his resentment, and said, “Get on,” and 
clung dizzily on to his thwart. 

As each roller passed under her, the surf-boat 
swooped higher and higher, and the laboring pad- 
dles seemed to give her less and less momentum. 
The head-man strained at the steering oar. The 
Krooboys had hard work to keep their perches on 
the gunwale. 

At last the head-man shouted, and the paddles 
ceased. They were waiting for a smooth. Roller 
after roller swept under them, and the boat rode 
them dizzily, but kept her place just beyond the 
outer edge of the surf. From over his shoulder, 
the head-man watched the charging seas with ani- 
mal intentness. Then with a sudden shriek he gave 
the word, and the paddles stabbed the water into 
spray. The heavy boat rushed forward again, and 
a great towering sea rushed after her. It reared 
her up, stern uppermost, and passed, leaving her 
half swamped by its foaming passage; and then 
came another sea, and the boat broached to and 
spilt. The Krooboys jumped like black frogs from 
either gunwale, and Kettle jumped also, and made 
his way easily to the sand, being used to this expe- 
rience. But Sheriff was pulled on to the beach with 
difficulty, and the Jew was hauled there in a state 
verging on the unconscious. He looked at the fear- 
some surf, and shuddered openly. “How shall we 
get off again?” he gasped. 

“More swimming,” said Kettle tersely. “And 
perhaps not manage it at all. You’d better give 
up the game, and go off decently to-morrow morn- 
ing from the Custom House wharf.” 

But Mr. White, whatever might be the list of his 


THE WIRE-MILKERS 


149 


failings, was certainlj^ possessed of dogged pluek, 
and as he had got that far with his enterprise, did 
not intend to desert it. He got rid of the sea- 
water that was within him, and resolutely led the 
way to the eable station, whieh loomed square and 
solid through the dusk. Sheriff followed, and Cap- 
tain Kettle, with his hands in his poekets, brought 
up the rear. The Krooboys, aeeording to their 
orders, stayed on the beaeh, brought in the boat, 
colleeted her furniture, and got all ready for relaunch- 
ing. 

White seemed to know the way as if he had been 
there before. He went up to the building, entered 
through an open door, and strode quietly in his 
rubber-soled shoes along a dark passage. At the 
end was a room in partial darkness, and a man 
who watched a spot of light which darted hither 
and back, and between whiles wrote upon paper. 
To him White went up, and clapped a cold revolver 
muzzle against the nape of his neck. 

“Now,” he said, “I want the loan of your in- 
strument for about an hour. If you resist, you’ll 
be shot. The noise of the shot will bring out the 
other men on the station, and they’ll be killed also. 
There are plenty of us here, and we are well armed, 
and we intend to have our own way. If you are 
not anything short of a fool, you’ll go and sit on 
that chair, and keep quiet till you’re given leave 
to talk.” 

“I don’t think I’ll argue it with you,” said the 
operator coolly. He got up and sat where he was 
told, and Kettle, according to arrangement, stood 
guard over him. “I suppose you malefactors know,” 
he added, “that there are certain pains and penalties 
attached to this sort of amusement, and that you 


150 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


are bound to get caught quite soon, whether you 
shoot me or let me go?’^ 

Nobody answered him. Wliite had sat down at 
the instrument table, and was tapping out messages 
like a man well accustomed to the work. 

“Of course with those black mask things over your 
faces I couldn’t recognize you again, even if I was 
put in the box; but, my good chaps, your steamer’s 
known, there’s no getting over that. Much better 
clear out before any mischief’s done, and own up 
you’ve made a mistake.” 

White turned on the man with a sudden fury. 
“If you don’t keep your silly mouth shut, I’ll have 
you throttled,” he threatened, and after that the 
only noise that broke the silence was the tap — tap- 
tap — taptapping of the telegraph instrument. 

Only two men in that darkened room knew what 
message was being dispatched, and these were White 
and the dispossessed operator. The one worked 
with cool, steady industry, and the other listened 
with strained intentness. Sheriff was outside the 
door keeping guard on the rest of the house. But 
Kettle, from his station behind the operator’s chair, 
listened with a strange disquietude. He had been 
told that the object of the raid was to arrange a 
stock exchange robbery, and to this he had tacitly 
agreed. According to his narrow creed (as gathered 
from the South Shields chapel) none but rogues and 
thieves dealt in stocks and shares, and if these chose 
to rob one another, an honest man might well 
look on non-interferent. But what guarantee had he 
that this robbery was not planned to draw plunder 
from the outside public as well? The pledged word of 
Mr. White. And that was worth? He smiled disdain- 
fully when he thought of the slenderness of its value. 


THE WIRE-MILKERS 


151 


Tap — taptap — tap — tap — taptap, said the tantal- 
izing instrument, going steadily on with its hidden 
speech. 

The stifling heat of the room seemed to get more 
oppressive. The mystery of the thing beat against 
Kettle’s brain. 

Of course he could not read the deposed operator’s 
thoughts, though he could see easily that the man 
was reading the messages which White was so 
glibly sending off. But it was clear that the man’s 
agitation was growing; growing, too, out of all 
proportion to the coolness he had shown when his 
room was first invaded. At last an exclamation 
was forced from him, almost, as it seemed, invol- 
untarily. ‘‘Oh, you ghastly scoundrel,” he mur- 
mured, and on that Kettle spoke. He could not 
stand the mystery any longer. 

“Tell me,” he said, “exactly what message that 
man’s sending.” 

“But I forbid you to do any such thing,” said 
White, and reached for his revolver. But before his 
fingers touched it, he looked up and saw Kettle’s 
weapon covering him. 

“You put that down,” came the crisp order, and 
White obeyed it nervously enough. 

“And now go and stand in the middle of the 
room till I give you leave to shift.” 

White did this also. He grasped the fact that 
Captain Kettle was not in a mood to be trifled 
with. 

“Now, Mr. Telegraph Clerk, as you understand 
this tack-hammer language, and as I could see you’ve 
been following all the messages that’s been sent, 
just tell me the whole lot of it, please, as near as 
you can remember.” 


152 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


“He called up London first, and gave what 
sounded like a registered address, and sent the word 
‘corruscate.’ That’s probably code ; anyway I don’t 
know what it meant. Then he called the Cape, and 
sent a message to the Governor. He hadn’t got to 
the end, and there was no signature, but it was 
evidently intended to make them believe that it was 
sent from the Colonial Office at home.” 

“Well,” said Kettle, “what was the message?” 

“Good Lord, man, he’s directing the Governor to 
declare war on the Transvaal. You know there’s 
been trouble with them lately, and they’ll believe 
that it comes from the right place. If this is some 
stock-jobbing plant ” 

“It is.” 

“Then, by heavens, it’ll be carried through unless 
you let me stop it at once. The thing’s plausible 
enough ” 

But here White recovered from his temporary 
scare, and cut in with a fine show of authority. 
“S’help me. Kettle, you’re making a pretty mess of 
things. You make me knock off in the middle of a 
message, and they’ll not know what’s up at the 
other end if I don’t go on. Look at that mirror.” 

“I see the spot of light winking about.” 

“That’s the operator at the next station calling 
me.” 

“But is it true what this gentleman’s been telling 
me?” 

“I suppose it is, more or less. But what of that? 
What did you lose your temper for like this? You 
knew quite well what we came here for.” 

“I knew you came to steal money from stock- 
brokers. I knew nothing about going to try and 
run m^^ country in for a war.” 


THE WIRE-MILKERS 


153 


“Poof, that’s nothing. The war would not hurt 
you and me. Besides, it must go on now. I’ve 
cabled my partner in London to be a bear in Kaffirs 
for all he’s worth. We must smash all the instru- 
ments here so they can’t contradict the news, and 
then be off.” 

“Your partner can be a bear or any other kind 
of beast, in any sort of niggers he chooses, but I’m 
not going to let you run England into war at any 
price.’* 

“Pah, my good man, what does that matter to 
you? What’s England ever done for you?” 

“I live there,” said Kettle, “when I’m at home, 
and as I’ve lived everywhere else in the world, I’m 
naturally a bit more fond of the old shop than if 
I’d never gone away from her beach. No, Mr. White, 
England’s never done anything special for me that 
I could, so to speak, put my finger on, but — ah 
would you!” 

White, in desperation, had made a grab at the 
revolver l3ring on the instrument table, but with a 
quick rush Kettle possessed himself of it, and Mr. 
White found himself again looking down the muzzle 
of Captain Kettle’s weapon. 

But a moment later the aim was changed. Sheriff, 
hearing the whispered talk, had come in through the 
doorway to see what it was about, and promptly 
found himself favored in his turn. 

“Shift your pistol to muzzle end, and bring it 
here.” 

Sheriff obeyed the order promptly. He had seen 
enough of Captain Kettle’s usefulness as a marks- 
man not to dispute his wishes. 

“Did you know that we came here to stir up a 
war between our folks at home and the Transvaal?” 


154 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


“I suppose so.” 

“And smash up the telegraph instruments after- 
ward, so that it could not be contradicted till it 
was well under way?” 

“That would have been necessary.” 

“And you remember what you told me on that 
steamboat? Oh! you liar!” said Kettle, and Sheriff 
winced. 

“Tm so beastly hard up,” he said. 

Captain Kettle might have commented on his 
own poverty, but he did not do this. Instead, he 
said : “Now we’ll go back to the ship, and of course 
you’ll have to scuttle her just as if you’d brought 
off your game here successfully. Run England in for 
a bloody war, would you, just for some filthy 
money? By James! no. Come, march. And you, 
Mr. Telegraph Clerk, get under weigh with that deaf 
and dumb alphabet of yours, and ring up the Cape, 
and tell them what’s been sent is all a joke, and 
there’s to be no war at all.” 

“I’ll do that, you may lay your heart on it,” said 
the operator. “But Mr. I-don’t-know-what-your- 
name-is, look here. Hadn’t you better stay? I’ll 
see things are put all right. But if you go off with 
those two sharks, it might be dangerous.” 

“Thank you, kindl3^, sir,” said Kettle; “but I’m a 
man that’s been accustomed to look after mj^self all 
the world over, and I’m not likely to get hurt now. 
Those two may be sharks, as you say, but I’m not 
altogether a simple little lamb myself.” 

“I shall be a bit uneasy for you. You’re a good 
soul whoever you may be, and I’d like to do some- 
thing for you if I could.” 

“Then, sir,” said Kettle, “just keep quiet, here, and 
get on with your work contradicting that wire, and 


THE WIRE-MILKERS 


155 


don’t send for any of those little Portuguese soldiers 
with guns to see us off. It’s a bad beach, and we 
mayn’t get off first try, and if they started to annoy 
us whilst we were at work, I might have to shoot 
some of them, which would be a trouble.” 

^‘I’ll see to that,” said the operator. “We’ll just 
shake hands if you don’t mind, before you go. 
There’s more man to the cubic inch about you than 
in any other fellow I’ve come across for a long time. 
I’ve no club at home now, or I’d ask you to look 
me up. But I dare say we shall meet again some 
time. So long.” 

“Good-by, sir,” said Kettle, and shook the opera- 
tor by the hand. Then he turned, and drove the 
other two raiders before him out of the house, and 
down to the beach, and, with the Krooboys, applied 
himself to launching the surf-boat through the 
breakers. 

“Run the old shop into a war, would you?” he 
soliloquized to two very limp, unconscious figures, 
as the Krooboys got the surf-boat afloat after the 
third upset. “It’s queer what some men will do for 
money.” And then, a minute later, he muttered to 
himself: “By James! look at that dawn coming up 
behind the island there; yellow as a lemon. Now, 
that is fine. I can make a bit of poetry out of 
that.” 


CHAPTER VII 

THE DERELICT 

“Her cargo’ll have shifted,” said the third mate, 
“and when she got that list her people will have 
felt frightened and left her.” 

“She’s a scary look to her, with her yard-arms 
spiking every other sea,” said Captain Image, “and 
her decks like the side of a house. I shouldn’t care 
to navigate a craft that preferred to lie down on 
her beam ends myself.” 

“Take this glass, sir, and you’ll see the lee quarter- 
boat davit-tackles are overhauled. That means 
they got at least one boat in the water. To my 
mind she’s derelict.” 

“Yard-arm tackles rigged and over-hauled, too,” 
said Captain Image. “She’ll have carried a big 
boat on the top of that house amidships, and that’s 
gone, too. Well, I hope her crew have got to dry 
land somewhere, or been picked up, poor beggars. 
Nasty things, those old wind-jammers, Mr. Strake. 
Give me steam.” 

“But there’s a pile of money in her still,” said the 
third mate, following up his own thoughts. “She’s 
an iron ship, and she’ll be two thousand tons, good. 
Likely enough in the ’Frisco grain trade. Seems to 
me a new ship, too ; anyway, she’s got those hum- 
bugging patent tops’ls.” 

“And you’re thinking she’d be a nice plum if we 
could pluck her in anywhere?” said Image, reading 
what was in his mind. 


THE DERELICT 


157 


“Well, me lad, I know that as well as yon, and no 
one would be pleaseder to pocket £300. But the 
old M^poso^s a mailboat, and because she’s got 
about a quarter of a hundredweight of badly spelt 
letters on board, she can’t do that sort of salvage 
work if there’s no life-saving thrown in as an extra 
reason. Besides, we’re behind time as it is, with 
smelling round for so much cargo, and though I 
shall draw my two and a-half per cent, on that, I 
shall have it all to pay away again, and more to 
boot, in fines for being late. No, I tell you it isn’t 
all sheer profit and delight in being skipper on one 
of those West African coast boats. And there’s 
another thing: the Chief was telling me only this 
morning that they’ve figured it very close on the 
coal. We only have what’ll take us to Liverpool 
ourselves, without trying to pull a yawing, heavy, 
towing thing like that on behind us.’’ 

Strake drummed at the white rail of the bridge. 
He was a very young man, and he was very keen 
on getting the chance of distinguishing himself ; and 
here, on the warm, windless swells abeam, the chance 
seemed to sit beckoning him. “I’ve been thinking, 
sir, if you can lend me half a dozen men, I could 
take her in somewhere myself.’’ 

“I’m as likely to lend you half a dozen angels. 
Look at the deck hands; look at the sickly trip 
this has been. We’ve had to put some of them on 
double tricks at the wheel already, and as for get- 
ting any painting done, or having the ship cleaned 
up a bit, why, I can see we shall go into Liverpool 
as dirty as a Geordie collier. Besides, Mr. Strake, 
I believe I’ve told you once or twice already that 
you’re not much use yourself, but anyway you’re 
the best that’s left, and I’m having to stand watch 


158 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


and watch with you as it is. If the mate gets out 
of his bed between here and home, it’ll be to go 
over the side, and the second mate’s nearly as bad 
with that nasty blackwater fever only just off him ; 
and there you are. Mr. Strake, if you have a 
penn’oth of brains stowed away anywhere, I wish 
to whiskers you’d show ’em sometimes.” 

“Old man’s mad at losing a nice lump of salvage,” 
thought Strake. “Natural, I guess.” So he said 
quietly: “Ay, ay, sir,” and walked away to the 
other end of the bridge. 

Captain Image followed him half-way, but stopped 
irresolutely with his hand on the engine-room tele- 
graph. On the fore main deck below him his old 
friend, Captain Owen Kettle, was leaning on the 
rail, staring wistfully at the derelict. 

“Poor beggar,” Image mused, “’tisn’t hard to 
guess what he’s thinking about. I wonder if I could 
fix it for him to take her home. It might set him 
on his legs again, and he’s come low enough. Lord 
knows. If I hadn’t given him a room in the first- 
class for old times’ sake, he’d have had to go home, 
after his trouble on the West Coast, as a distressed 
seaman, and touch his cap to me when I passed. 
I’ve not done badly by him, but I shall have to 
pay for that room in the first-class out of my own 
pocket, and if he was to take that old wind-jammer 
in somewhere, he’d fork out, and very like give me 
a dash besides. 

“Yes, I will say that about Kettle; he’s honest as 
a barkeeper, and generous besides. He’s a steamer 
sailor, of course, and has been most of these years, 
and how he’ll do the white wings business again. 
Lord only knows. Forget he hasn’t got engines till 
it’s too late, and then drown himself probably. 


THE DERELICT 


159 


However, that’s his palaver. Where we’re going to 
scratch him up a crew from’s the thing that bothers 
me. Well, we’ll see.” He leaned down over the 
bridge rail, and called. 

Kettle looked up. 

“Here a minute. Captain.” 

Poor Kettle’s eye lit, and he came up the ladders 
with a boy’s quickness. 

Image nodded toward the deserted vessel. “Fine 
full-rigger, hasn’t she been? What do you make her 
out for?” 

“’Frisco grain ship. Stuff in bulk. And it’s 
shifted.” 

“Looks that way. Have you forgotten all your 
‘mainsail haul’ and the square-rig gymnastics?” 

“I’m hard enough pushed now to remember even 
the theory-sums they taught at navigation school 
if I thought they would serve me.” 

“I know. And I’m as sorry for you. Captain, as 
I can hold. But you see, it’s this: I’m short of 
sailormen ; I’ve barely enough to steer and keep the 
decks clean; anyway I’ve none to spare.” 

“I don’t ask for fancy goods,” said Kettle eagerly. 
“Give me anything with hands on it — apes, niggers, 
stokers, what you like, and I’ll soon teach them 
their dancing steps.” 

Captain Image pulled at his moustache. “The 
trouble of it is, we are short everywhere. It’s been 
a sickly voyage, this. I couldn’t let you have more 
than two out of the stokehold, and even if we take 
those, the old Chief will be fit to eat me. You could 
do nothing with that big vessel with only two 
beside yourself.” 

“Let me go round and see. I believe I can rake 
up enough hands somehow.” 


160 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


“Well, you must be quiek about it,” said Image. 
“I’ve wasted more than enough time already. I can 
only give you five minutes. Captain. Oh, by the 
way, there’s a nigger stowaway from Sarry Leone 
you can take if you like. He’s a stonemason or 
some such foolishness, and I don’t mind having him 
drowned. If you hammer him enough, probably 
he’ll learn how to put some weight on a brace.” 

“That stonemason’s just the man I can use,” said 
Kettle. “Get him for me. I’ll never forget your 
kindness over this. Captain, and you may depend 
upon me to do the square thing by 3^ou if I get her 
home.” 

Captain Kettle ran off down the bridge and was 
quickly out of sight, and hard at his quest for 
volunteers. Captain Image waited a minute, and he 
turned to his third mate. “Now, me lad,” he said, 
“I know you’re disappointed; but with the other 
mates sick like they are, it’s just impossible for me 
to let you go. If I did, the Company would sack 
me, and the dirty Board of Trade would probably 
take away my ticket. So 3^ou may as well do the 
kind, and help poor old Cappie Kettle. You see 
what he’s come down to, through no fault of his 
own. You’re young, and you’re full to thecoamings^ 
with confidence. I’m older, and I know that luck 
may very well get up and hit me, and I’ll be want- 
ing a helping hand myself It’s a rotten, undepend- 
able trade, this sailoring. You might just call the 
carpenter, and get the cover off that smaller life- 
boat.” 

“You think he’ll get a crew, then, sir, and not 
our deckhands?” 

“Him? He’ll get some things with legs and arms to 
them, if he has to whittle ’em out of kindling-wood. 


THE DERELICT 


161 


It’s not that that’ll stop Cappie Kettle now, me 
lad.” 

The third mate went off, sent for the carpenter, and 
started to get a lifeboat cleared and ready for launch- 
ing. Captain Image fell to anxiously pacing the 
upper bridge, and presently Kettle came back to him. 

“Well, Captain,” he said, “I got a fine crew to 
volunteer, if you can see your way to let me 
have them. There’s a fireman and a trimmer, both 
English; there’s a third-class passenger — a Dago of 
some sort, I think he is, that was a ganger on the 
Congo railway — and there’s Mr. Dayton-Philipps ; 
and if you send me along your nigger stonemason, 
that’ll make a good, strong ship’s company.” 

“Dayton-Philipps!” said Image. “Why, he’s an 
officer in the English Army, and he’s been in com- 
mand of Haussa troops on the Gold Coast, and 
he’s been some sort of a Resident, or political thing 
up in one of those nigger towns at the back there. 
What’s he want to go for?” 

“Said he’d come for the fun of the thing.” 

Captain Image gave a grim laugh. “Well, I think 
he’ll find all the fun he’s any use for before he’s 
ashore again. Extraordinary thing some people 
can’t see they’re well off when they’ve got a job 
ashore. Now, Mr. Strake, hurry with that boat 
and get her lowered away. You’re to take charge 
and bring her back; and mind, you’re not to leave 
the captain here and his gang aboard if the vessel’s 
too badly wrecked to be safe.” 

He turned to Kettle. “Excuse my giving that 
last order, old man, but I know how keen you are, 
and I’m not going to let you go off to try and 
navigate a sieve. You’re far too good a man to be 

drowned uselessly.” 

11 


162 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


The word was “Hurry,” now that the final deci- 
sion had been given, and the davit tackles squeaked 
out as the lifeboat jerked down toward the water. 
She rode there at the end of her painter, and the 
three rowers and the third mate fended her off, 
while Kettle’s crew of nondescripts scrambled un- 
handily down to take their places. The negro 
stowaway refused stubbornly to leave the steamer, 
and so was lowered ignominiously in a bowline, and 
then, as he still objected loudly that he came from 
Sa’ Leone, and was a free British subject, some one 
crammed a bucket over his head, amidst the up- 
roarious laughter of the onlookers. 

Captain Kettle swung himself down the swaying 
Jacob’s ladder, and the boat’s painter was cast off; 
and under three oars she moved slowly off over the 
hot sun-kissed swells. Advice and farewells boomed 
like a thunderstorm from the steamer, and an ani- 
mated frieze of faces and figures and waving head- 
gear decorated her rail. 

Ahead of them, the quiet ship shouldered clumsih^ 
over the rollers, now gushing down till she dipped 
her martingale, now swooping up again, sending 
whole cataracts of water swirling along her waist. 

The men in the boat regarded her with curious 
eyes as they drew nearer. Even the three rowers 
turned their heads, and were called to order therefor 
by the mate at the tiller. A red ensign was seized 
jack downward in her main rigging, the highest 
note of the sailorman’s agony of distress. On its 
wooden case, in her starboard fore-rigging, a diop- 
tric lens sent out the faint green glow of a lamp’s 
light into the sunshine. 

The third mate drew attention to this last “Lot 
of oil in that lamp,” he said, “or it means they 


THE DERELICT 


163 


haven’t deserted her very long. To my mind, it 
must have been in yesterday’s breeze her eargo 
shifted, and scared her people into leaving her.” 

“We shall see,” said Kettle, still staring intently 
ahead. 

The boat was run up cannily alongside, and Kettle 
jumped into the main chains and clambered on 
board over the bulwarks. “Now, pass up my crew, 
Mr. Strake,” said he. 

“I’m coming myself next, if you don’t mind,” said 
the third mate, and did so. “Must obey the old 
man’s orders,” he explained, as they stood together 
on the sloping decks. “You heard yourself what he 
said. Captain.” 

“Well, Mr. Mate,” said Kettle grimly, “I hope 
you’ll decide she’s seaworthy, because, whatever 
view you take of it, as I’ve got this far, here I’m 
going to stay.” 

The mate frowned. He was a young man; he 
was here in authority, and he had a great notion of 
making his authority felt. Captain Kettle was to 
him merely a down-on-his-luck free-passage nobody, 
and as the mate was large and lusty he did not 
anticipate trouble. So he remarked rather crabbedly 
that he was going to obey his orders, and went aft 
along the slanting deck. 

It was clear that the vessel had been swept — badly 
swept. Ropes-ends streamed here and there and 
overboard in every direction, and everything mov- 
able had been carried away eternally by the sea. 
A goodly part of the starboard bulwarks had van- 
ished, and the swells gushed in and out as they 
chose. But the hatch tarpaulins and companions 
were still in place ; and though it was clear from the 
list (which was so great that they could not walk 
11 


164 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


without holding on) that her cargo was badly 
shifted, there was no evidence so far that she was 
otherwise than sound. 

The third mate led the way on to the poop, 
opened the companion doors and slide, and went 
below. Kettle followed. There was a cabin with 
state rooms off it, littered, but dry. Strake went 
down on his knees beneath the table, searching for 
something. “Lazaret hatch ought to be down here, ’ ’ 
he explained. “I want to see in there. Ah, it is.” 

He got his fingers in the ring and pulled it back. 
Then he whistled. “Half-full of water,” he said. “I 
thought so from the way she floated. It’s up to 
the beams down here. Likely enough she’ll have 
started a plate somewhere. ’Fraid it’s no go for 
you. Captain. Why, if a breeze was to come on, 
half the side of her might drop out, and she’d go 
down like a stone.” 

Now to Kettle’s honor be it said (seeing what he 
had in his mind) he did not tackle the man as he 
knelt there peering into the lazaret. Instead he 
waited till he stood up again, and then made his 
statement coldly and deliberately. 

“This ship’s not too dangerous for me, and I 
choose to judge. And if she’ll do for me, she’s good 
enough for the crew I’ve got in your boat. Now I 
want them on deck, and at work without any more 
palaver.” 

“Do you, by God!” said the mate, and then the 
pair of them closed without any further prelimi- 
naries. They were both of them well used to quick 
rough-and-tumbles, and they both of them knew 
that the man who gets the first grip in these 
wrestles usually wins, and instinctively each tried 
to act on that knowledge. 


THE DERELICT 


165 


But if the third mate had bulk and strength, 
Kettle had seience and abundant wiriness; and 
though the pair of them lost their footing on the 
sloping cabin floor at the first embrace, and 
wriggled over and under like a pair of eels. Captain 
Kettle got a thumb artistically fixed in the bigger 
man’s windpipe, and held it there doggedly. The 
mate, growing more and more purple, hit out with 
savage force, but Kettle dodged the bull-like blows 
like the boxer he was, and the mate’s efibrts gradu- 
ally relaxed. 

But at this point they were interrupted. ‘‘That 
wobbly boat was making me sea-sick,” said a voice, 
“so I came on board here. Hullo, you fellows!” 

Kettle looked up. “Mr. Philipps,” he said, “I wish 
you’d go and get the rest of our crew on deck out 
of the boat.” 

“But what are you two doing down there?” 

“We disagreed over a question of judgment. He 
said this ship isn’t safe, and I shouldn’t have the 
chance to take her home. I say there’s nothing 
wrong with her that can’t be remedied, and home 
I’m going to take her, anyway. It might be the 
one chance in my life, sir, of getting a balance at the 
bank, and I’m not going to miss it.” 

“Ho!” said Dayton-Philipps. 

“If you don’t like to come, you needn’t,” said 
Kettle. “But I’m going to have the stonemason 
and the Dago, and those two coal-heavers. Perhaps 
you’d better go back. It will be wet, hard work 
here; no way the sort of job to suit a soldier.” 

Dayton-Philipps flushed slightly, and then he 
laughed. “I suppose that’s intended to be nasty,” 
he said. “Well, Captain, I shall have to prove to 
you that we soldiers are equal to a bit of manual 


166 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


labor sometimes. By the way, I don’t want to 
interfere in a personal matter, but I’d take it as a 
favor if you wouldn’t kill Strake quite. I rather like 
him.” 

“Anything to oblige,” said Kettle, and took his 
thumb out of the third mate’s windpipe. “And now, 
sir, as you’ve so to speak signed on for duty here, 
away with you on deck and get those four other 
beauties up out of the boat.” 

Dayton-Philipps touched his hat and grinned. 
“Ay, ay, sir,” he said, and went back up the com- 
panion. 

Shortly afterward he came to report the men on 
board, and Kettle addressed his late opponent. 
“Now, look here, young man, I don’t want to have 
more trouble on deck before the hands. Have you 
had enough?” 

“For the present, yes,” said the third mate huskily. 
“But I hope we’ll meet again some other day to 
have a bit of further talk.” 

“I am sure I shall be quite ready. No man ever 
accused me of refusing a scrap. But, me lad, just 
take one tip from me : don’t you go and make Cap- 
tain Image anxious by saying this ship isn’t sea- 
worthy, or he’ll begin to ask questions, and he may 
get you to tell more than you’re proud about.” 

“You can go and get drowned your own way. 
As far as I am concerned, no one will guess it’s 
coming off till they see it in the papers.” 

“Thanks,” said Kettle. “I knew you’d be nice 
about it.” 

The third mate went down to his boat, and the 
three rowers took her across to the M’poso, where 
she was hauled up to davits again. The steamer’s 
siren boomed out farewells, as she got under way 


THE DERELICT 


167 


again, and Kettle with his own hands unbent the 
reversed ensign from the ship’s main rigging, and ran 
it up to the peak and dipped it three times in salute. 

He breathed more freely now. One ehance and a 
host of unknown dangers lay ahead of him. But the 
dangers he disregarded. Dangers were nothing new 
to him. It was the chance which lured him on. 
Chances so seldom came in his way, that he in- 
tended to make this one into a certainty if the 
efforts of desperation could do it. 

Alone of all the six men on the derelict. Captain 
Kettle had knowledge of the seaman’s craft; but, for 
the present, thews and not seamanship were re- 
quired. The vessel lay in pathetic helplessness on 
her side, liable to capsize in the first squall which 
came along, and their first effort must be to get her 
in proper trim whilst the calm continued. They 
knocked out the wedges with their heels, and got 
the tarpaulins off the main hatch ; they pulled away 
the hatch covers, and saw beneath them smooth 
slopes of yellow grain. 

As though they were an invitation to work, 
shovels were made fast along the coamings of the 
hatch. The six men took these, and with shouts 
dropped down upon the grain. And then began a 
period of Homeric toil. The fireman and the coal- 
trimmer set the pace, and with a fine contempt for 
the unhandiness of amateurs did not fail to give a 
display of their utmost. Kettle and Dayton-Philipps 
gamely kept level with them. The Italian ganger 
turned out to have his pride also, and did not lag, 
and only the free-bom British subject from Sierra 
Leone endeavored to shirk his due proportion of the 
toil. 

But high-minded theories as to the rights of man 


168 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


were regarded here as little as threats to lay infor- 
mation before a justice of the peace ; and under the 
sledge-hammer arguments of shovel blows from 
whoever happened to be next to him, the unfortu- 
nate colored gentleman descended to the grade of 
nigger again (which he had repeatedly sworn never 
to do), and toiled and sweated equally with his 
betters. 

The heat under the decks was stifling, and dust 
rose from the wheat in choking volumes, but the 
pace of the circling shovels was never allowed to 
slacken. They worked there stripped to trousers, 
and they understood, one and all, that they were 
working for their lives. A breeze had sprung up 
almost as soon as the M^poso had steamed away, 
and hourly it was freshening : the barometer in the 
cabin was registering a steady fall; the sky was 
banking up with heavy clouds. 

Kettle had handled sheets and braces and hove the 
vessel to so as to steady her as they worked, but 
she still labored heavily in the sea, and beneath 
them they could hear the leaden swish of water in 
the floor of the hold beneath. Their labor was 
having its effect, and by infinitesimal gradations 
they were counteracting the list and getting the 
ship upright; but the wind was worsening, and it 
seemed to them also that the water was getting 
deeper under their feet, and that the vessel rode 
more sluggishly. 

So far the well had not been sounded. It is no use 
getting alarming statistics to discourage one’s self 
unnecessarily. But after night had fallen, and it 
was impossible to see to work in the gloomy hold 
any longer without lamps. Captain Kettle took the 
sounding-rod and found eight feet. 


THE DERELICT 


169 


He mentioned this when he took down the lan- 
terns into the hold, but he did not think it necessary 
to add that as the sounding had been taken with 
the well on the slant it was therefore considerably 
under the truth. Still he sent Day ton-Philipps and the 
trimmer on deck to take a spell at the pumps, and 
himself resumed his shovel work alongside the others. 

Straight away on through the night the six men 
stuck to their savage toil, the blood from their 
blistered hands reddening the shafts of the shovels. 
Every now and again one or another of them, 
choked with the dust, went to get a draft of luke- 
warm water from the scuttlebutt. But no one 
stayed over long on these excursions. The breeze 
had blown up into a gale. The night overhead was 
starless and moonless, but every minute the black 
heaven was split by spurts of lightning, which 
showed the laboring, dishevelled ship set among 
great mountains of breaking seas. 

The sight would have been bad from a well- 
manned, powerful steamboat; from the deck of the 
derelict it approached the terrific. With the seas 
constantly crashing on board of her, to have left 
the hatches open would have been, in her semi- 
waterlogged condition, to court swamping, and after 
midnight these were battened down, and the men 
with the shovels worked among the frightened, 
squeaking rats in the closed-in box of the hold. 
There were four on board the ship during that 
terrible night who openly owned to being cowed, 
and freely bewailed their insanity in ever being lured 
away from the JS/Tposo. Dayton- Philipps had suffi- 
cient self-control to keep his feelings, whatever they 
were, unstated ; but Kettle faced all difficulties with 
indomitable courage and a smiling face. 


170 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


“I believe,” said Dayton-Philipps to him once when 
they were taking a spell together at the clanking 
pumps, “you really glory in finding yourself in this 
beastly mess.” 

“I have got to earn out the salvage of this ship 
somehow,” Kettle shouted back to him through the 
windy darkness, “and I don’t much care what work 
comes between now and when I handle the check.” 

“You’ve got a fine confidence. I’m not grumbling, 
mind, but it seems very unlikely we shall be still 
afloat to-morrow morning.” 

“We shall pull through, I tell you.” 

“Well,” said Dayton-Philipps, “I suppose you are 
a man that’s always met with success. I’m not. 
I’ve got blundering bad luck all along, and if there’s 
a hole available, I get into it.” 

Captain Kettle laughed aloud into the storm. 
“Me!” he cried. “Me in luck! There’s not been a 
man more bashed and kicked by luck between here 
and twenty years back. I suppose God thought it 
good for me, and He’s kept me down to my bear- 
ings in bad luck ever since I first got my captain’s 
ticket. But He’s not cruel, Mr. Philipps, and He 
doesn’t’push a man beyond the end of his patience. 
My time’s come at last. He’s given me something 
to make up for all the weary waiting. He’s sent 
me this derelict, and He only expects me to do m3^ 
human best, and then He’ll let me get her safely 
home.” 

“Good Heavens, Skipper, what are you talking 
about? Have you seen visions or something?” 

“I’m a man, Mr. Philipps, that’s always said my 
prayers regular all through life. I’ve asked for 
things, big things, man^^ of them, and I’ll not deny 
they’ve been mostly denied me. I seemed to know 


THE DERELICT 


171 


they’d be denied. But in the last week or so there’s 
been a change. I’ve asked on, just as earnestly as 
I knew how, and I seemed to hear Him answer. 
It was hardly a voice, and yet it was like a voice ; 
it appeared to come out of millions of miles of dis- 
tance; and I heard it say: ‘Captain, I do not forget 
the sparrows, and I have not forgotten you. I 
have tried you long enough. Presently you shall 
meet with your reward.’ ” 

Dayton-Philipps stared. Was the man going mad? 

“And that’s what it is, sir, that makes me sure I 
shall bring this vessel into some port safely and 
pocket the salvage.” 

“Look here. Skipper,” said Dayton-Philipps, “you 
are just fagged to death, and I’m the same. We’ve 
been working till our hands are raw as butcher’s 
meat, and we’re clean tired out, and we must go 
below and get a bit of sleep. If the ship swims, so 
much the better; if she sinks, we can’t help it; 
anyway, we’re both of us too beat to work any 
more. I shall be ‘seeing things’ myself next.” 

“Mr. Philipps,” said the little sailor gravely, “I 
know you don’t mean anything wrong, so I take 
no offence. But I’m a man convinced; I’ve heard 
the message I told you with my own understanding ; 
and it isn’t likely anything you can say will per- 
suade me out of it. I can see you are tired out, as 
you say, so go you below and get a spell of sleep. 
But as for me, I’ve got another twenty hours’ 
wakefulness in me yet, if needs be. This chance has 
mercifully been sent in my way, as I’ve said, but 
naturally it’s expected of me that I do my human 
utmost as well to see it through.” 

“If you stay on at this heart-breaking work, so 
do I,” said Dayton-Philipps, and toiled gamely on 


172 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


at the pump. There he was still when day broke, 
sawing up and down like an automaton. But before 
the sun rose, utter weariness had done its work. 
His bleeding fingers loosed themselves from the break, 
his knees failed beneath him, and he fell in an un- 
conscious stupor of sleep on to the wet planking 
of the deck. For half an hour more Kettle strug- 
gled on at the pump, doing double work ; but even 
his flesh and blood had its breaking strain; and at 
last he could work no more. 

He leaned dizzily up against the pump for a min- 
ute or so, and then with an effort he pulled his 
still unconscious companion away and laid him on 
the dry floor of a deck-house. There was a panni- 
kin of cold stewed tea slung from a hook in there, 
and half a sea biscuit on one of the bunks. He ate 
and drank greedily, and then went out again along 
the streaming decks to work, so far as his single 
pair of hands could accomplish such a thing, at 
getting the huge derelict once more in sailing trim. 

The shovels meanwhile had been doing their work, 
and although the list was not entirely gone, the 
vessel at times (when a sea buttressed her up) 
floated almost upright. The gale was still blowing, 
but it had veered to the southward, and on the 
afternoon of that day Kettle called all hands on 
deck and got her under way again, and found to 
his joy that the coal- trimmer had some elementary 
notion of taking a wheel. 

‘T rate you as Mate,” he said in his gratitude, 
‘‘and you’ll draw salvage pay according to your 
rank. I was going to make Mr. Philipps my officer, 
but ” 

“Don’t apologize,” said Dayton-Philipps. “I don’t 
know the name of one string from another, and I’m 


THE DERELICT 


173 


quite conscious of my deficiency. But just watch 
me put in another spell at those infernal pumps.” 

The list was of less account now, and the vessel 
was once more under command of her canvas. It 
was the leak which gave them most cause for anx- 
iety. Likely enough it was caused by the mere 
wrenching away of a couple of rivets. But the 
steady inpour of water through the holes would 
soon have made the ship grow unmanageable and 
founder if it was not constantly attended to. Where 
the leak was they had not a notion. Probably it 
was deep down under the cargo of grain, and quite 
unget-at-able ; but an3rway it demanded a constant 
service at the pumps to keep it in check, and this 
the bone- weary crew were but feebly competent to 
give. They were running up into the latitude of the 
Bay, too, and might reasonably expect that “Biscay 
weather” would not take much from the violence of 
the existing gale. 

However, the dreaded Bay, fickle as usual, saw fit 
to receive them at first with a smiling face. The 
gale eased to a plain smiling wind ; the sullen black 
clouds dissolved away into fleckless blue, and a sun 
came out which peeled their arms and faces as they 
worked. During the afternoon they rose the brown 
sails of a Portuguese fishing schooner, and Kettle 
headed toward her. 

Let his crew be as willing as they would, there 
was no doubt that this murderous work at the 
pumps could not be kept up for a voyage to Eng- 
land. If he could not get further reinforcements, he 
would have to take the ship into the nearest for- 
eign port to barely save her from sinking. And 
then where would be his sighed-for salvage? Wo- 
fully thinned, he thought, or more probably whisked 


174 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


away altogether. Captain Kettle had a vast dis- 
trust for the shore foreigner over questions of law 
proceedings and money matters. So he made for 
the schooner, hove his own vessel to, and signalled 
that he wished to speak. 

A boat was slopped into the water from the 
schooner’s deck, and ten swarthy, ragged Portu- 
guese fishermen crammed into her. A couple pushed 
at the oars, and they made their way perilously 
over the deep hill and dale of ocean with that eas}^ 
familiarity which none but deep-sea fishermen can 
attain. They worked up alongside, caught a rope 
which was thrown them, and nimbly climbed over 
on to the decks. 

Two or three of them had a working knowledge 
of English; their captain spoke it with fluent in- 
accuracy; and before any of them had gone aft to 
Kettle, who stood at the wheel, they heard the 
whole story of the ship being found derelict, and 
(very naturally) were anxious enough by some 
means or another to finger a share of the salvage. 
Even a ragged Portuguese haccalhao maker can 
have his ambitions for prosperity like other people. 

Their leader made his proposal at once. “All 
right-a. Captain, I see how you want. We take 
charge now, and take-a you into Ferrol without 
3^ou being at more trouble.” 

“Nothing of the kind,” said Kettle. “I’m just 
wanting the loan of two or three hands to give 
my fellows a spell or two at that pump. We’re a 
bit short-handed, that’s all. But otherwise we’re 
quite comfortable. I’ll pay A. B.’s wages on Liver- 
pool scale, and that’s a lot more than you Dagos 
give amongst yourselves, and if the men work well 
I’ll throw in a dash besides for ‘bacca money.’ ” 





HR PICKED UP THE MAN AND SENT 


HIM AFTER THE 


KNIFE. 


[Facie 175 . 


THE DERELICT 


175 


“Ta-ta-ta,” said the Portuguese, with a wave of 
his yellow fist. “It eannot be done, and I will not 
lend you men. It shall do as I say ; we take-a you 
into Ferroll. Do not fear-a, eaptain ; you shall have 
money for finding sheep ; you shall have some of our 
salvage.” 

Dayton-Philipps, who was standing near, and 
knew the little sailor’s views, looked for an out- 
break. But Kettle held himself in, and still spoke 
to the man eivilly. 

“That’s good English you talk,” he said. “Do all 
your crowd understand the language?” 

“No,” said the fellow, readily enough, “that man 
does not, nor does him, nor him.” 

“Right — oh!” said Kettle. “Then, as those three 
man can’t kick up a bobbery at the other end, 
they’ve just got to stay here and help work this 
vessel home. And as for the rest of you filthy, 
stinking, scale-covered cousins of apes, over the 
side you go before you’re put. Thought you were 
going to steal my lawful salvage, did you, you 
crawling, yellow-faced — ah!” 

The hot-tempered Portuguese was not a man to 
stand this tirade (as Kettle anticipated) unmoved. 
His fingers made a T vengeful snatch toward the 
knife in his belt, but Kettle was ready for this, 
and caught it first and flung it overboard. Then 
with a clever heave he picked up the man and sent 
him after the knife. 

He tripped up one of the Portuguese who couldn’t 
speak English, dragged him to the cabin companion, 
and toppled him down the ladder. Da^^ton-Philipps 
(surprised at himself for abetting such lawlessness) 
captured a second in like fashion, and the English 
fireman and coal-trimmer picked up the third and 


176 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


dropped him down an open hatchway on to the 
grain in the hold beneath. 

But there were six of the fishermen left upon the 
deck, and these did not look upon the proceedings un- 
moved. They had been slow to act at first, but 
when the initial surprise was over, they were blaz- 
ing with rage and eager to do murder. The Italian 
and the Sierra Leone nigger ran out of their way 
on to the forecastle head, and they came on, vain- 
glorious in numbers, and armed with their deadly 
knives. But the two English roughs, the English 
gentleman, and the little English sailor, were all of 
them men well accustomed to take care of their 
own skins; the belaying pins out of the pinrail 
seemed to come by instinct into their hands, and 
not one of them got so much as a scratch. 

It* was all the affair of a minute. It does not 
do to let these little impromptu scrimmages sim- 
mer over long. In fact, the whole affair was de- 
cided in the first rush. The quartette of English 
went in, despising the “Dagos,” and quite intending 
to clear them off the ship. The invaders were driv- 
en overboard by sheer weight of blows and prestige, 
and the victors leaned on the bulwark puffing and 
gasping, and watched them swim away to their 
boat through the clear water below. 

“Ruddy Dagos,” said the roughs. 

“Set of blooming pirates,” said Kettle. 

But Dayton-Philipps seemed to view the situation 
from a different point. “I’m rather thinking we 
are the pirates. How about those three we’ve got 
on board? This sort of press-gang work isn’t quite 
approved of nowadays, is it. Skipper?” 

“They no speakee English,” said Kettle drily. 
“You might have heard me ask that, sir, before I 


THE DERELICT 


177 


started to talk to that skipper to make him begin 
the show. And he did begin it, and that’s the 
great point. If ever yonVe been in a police court, 
you’ll always find the magistrate ask, ‘Who began 
this trouble?’ And when he finds out, that’s the 
man he logs. No, those fishermen won’t kick up 
a bobbery when they get back to happy Portugal 
again; and as for our own crowd here on board, 
they ain’t likely to talk when they get ashore, and 
have money due to them.” 

“Well, I suppose there’s reason in that, though I 
should have my doubts about the stonemason. He 
comes from Sierra Leone, remember, and they’re 
great on the rights of man there.” 

“Quite so,” said Kettle. “I’ll see the stonemason 
gets packed off to sea again in a stokehold before 
he has a chance of stirring up the mud ashore. 
When the black man gets too pampered, he has to 
be brought low again with a rush, just to make 
him understand his place.” 

“I see,” said Dayton-Phillips, and then he laughed. 

“There’s something that tickles you, sir?” 

“I was thinking. Skipper, that for a man who be- 
lieves he’s being put in the way of a soft thing by 
direct guidance from on high, you’re using up a tre- 
mendous lot of energy to make sure the Almighty’s 
wishes don’t miscarry. But still I don’t understand 
much about these matters myself. And at present 
it occurs to me that I ought to be doing a spell at 
those infernal pumps, instead of chattering here.” 

The three captive Portuguese were brought up on 
deck and were quickly induced by the ordinary 
persuasive methods of the merchant service officer 
to forego their sulkiness and turn-to diligently at 
what work was required of them. But even with 
12 


178 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


this help the heavy ship was still considerably un- 
dermanned, and the incessant labor at the pumps 
fell wearily on all hands. The Bay, true to its 
fickle nature, changed on them again. The sun- 
shine was swamped by a driving gray mist of rain ; 
the glass started on a steady fall ; and before dark, 
Kettle snugged her down to single topsails, him- 
self laying out on the foot-ropes with the Portu- 
guese, as no others of his crew could manage to 
scramble aloft with so heavy a sea running. 

The night worsened as it went on; the wind 
piled up steadily in violence; and the sea rose till 
the sodden vessel rode it with a very babel of 
shrieks, and groans, and complaining sounds. To- 
ward morning, a terrific squall powdered up 
against them and hove her down, and a dull rum- 
bling was heard in her bowels to let them know 
that once more her cargo had shifted. 

For the moment, even Kettle thought that this 
time she was gone for good. She lost her way, and 
lay down like a log in the water, and the racing 
seas roared over her as though she had been a 
half-tide rock. By a miracle no one was washed 
overboard. But her people hung here and there to 
eyebolts and ropes, mere nerveless wisps of human- 
ity, incapable under those teeming cataracts of 
waves to lift so much as a finger to help them- 
selves. 

Then to the impact of a heavier gasp of the squall, 
the topgallant masts went, and the small loss of 
of top-weight seemed momentarily to ease her. 
Kettle seized upon the moment. He left the trimmer 
and one of the Portuguese at the wheel, and handed 
himself along the streaming decks and kicked and 
cuflfed the rest of his crew into activity. He gave 


THE DERELICT 


179 


his orders, and the ship wore slowly round before 
the wind, and began to pay away on the other 
tack. 

Great hills of sea deluged her in the process, and 
her people worked like mermen, half of their time 
submerged. But by degrees, as the vast rollers hit 
and shook her with their ponderous impact, she 
came upright again, and after a little while shook 
the grain level in her holds, and assumed her nor- 
mal angle of heel. 

Dayton-Philipps struggled up and hit Kettle on 
the shoulder. “How’s that, umpire?” he bawled. 
“My faith, you are a clever sailor.” 

Captain Kettle touched his hat. “God bore a 
hand there, sir,” he shouted through the wind. 
“If I’d tried to straighten her up like that without 
outside help, every man here would have been fish- 
chop this minute.” 

Even Dayton-Philipps, sceptical though he might 
be, began to think there was “something in it” as 
the voyage went on. To begin with, the leak 
stopped. They did not know how it had happened, 
and they did not very much care. Kettle had his 
theories. Anyway it stopped. To go on with, 
although they were buffeted with every kind of 
evil weather, all their mischances were speedily 
rectified. In a heavy sea, all their unstable cargo 
surged about as though it had been liquid, but it 
always shifted back again before she quite capsized. 
The mizzen-mast went bodily overboard in one 
black rain-squall because they were too short-hand- 
ed to get sail off it in time, but they found that 
the vessel sailed almost as well as a brig, and was 
much easier for a weak crew to manage. 

All hands got covered with salt-water boils. All 


180 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


hands, with the exception of Kettle — who remained, 
as usual, neat — grew gaunt, bearded, dirty, and 
unkempt. They were grimed with sea-salt, they 
were flayed with violent suns ; but by dint of hard 
schooling they were becoming handy sailormen, all 
of them, and even the negro stonemason learned to 
obey an order without first thinking over its jus- 
tice till he earned a premonitory hiding. 

In the throat of the English Channel a blundering 
steamship did her best to run them down, and ac- 
tually rasped sides with the sailing-vessel as she 
tore past into the night; but nobody made an at- 
tempt to jump for safety on to her decks, nobody 
even took the trouble to swear at her with any 
thing like heartfelt profanity. 

“It’s a blooming Flying Dutchman we’re on,” said 
the coal-trimmer who acted as mate. “There’s no 
killing the old beast. Only hope she gets us ashore 
somehow, and doesn’t stay fooling about at sea 
forever just to get into risks. I want to get off 
her. She’s too blooming lucky to be quite whole- 
some somehow.” 

Kettle had intended to make a Channel port, but 
a gale hustled him north round Land’s End, “and 
you see,” he said to Dayton-Philipps, “what I get 
for not being sufficiently trustful. The old girl’s 
papers are made out to Cardiff, and here we are 
pushed round into the Bristol Channel. By James! 
look, there’s a tug making up to us. Thing like 
that makes you feel homey, doesn’t it, sir?” 

The little spattering tug wheeled up within hai!, 
tossing like a cork on the brown waves of the est- 
uary, and the skipper in the green pulpit between 
the paddle-boxes waved a hand cheerily. 

“Seem to have found some dirty weather. Cap- 


THE DERELICT 


181 


tain,” he bawled. “Want a pull into Cardiff or 
Newport?” 

“Cardiff. What price?” 

“Saj £100.” 

“I wasn’t asking to buy the tug. You’re putting 
a pretty fancy figure on her for that new lick of 
paint you’ve got on your rails.” 

“I’ll take £80.” 

“Oh, I can sail her in m^^self if you’re going to 
be funny. She’s as handy as a pilot-boat, brig 
rigged like this, and my crew know her fine. I’ll 
give you £20 into Cardiff, and you’re to dock me 
for that.” 

“Twenty wicked people. Now look here. Captain, 
you don’t look very prosperous with that vessel of 
yours, and will probably have the sack from owners 
for mishandling her when you get ashore, and I 
don’t want to embitter your remaining years in 
the workus, so I’ll pull you in for fifty quid.” 

“£20, old bottle nose.” 

“Come now. Captain, thirty. I’m not here for 
sport. I’ve got to make my living.” 

“My man,” said Kettle, “I’ll meet you and make 
it £25, and I’ll see you in Aden before I give a 
penny more. You can take that, or sheer off.” 

“Throw us your blooming rope,” said the tug 
skipper. 

“There, sir,” said Kettle sotto voce to Dayton- 
Philipps, “you see the marvellousness of it? God 
has stood by me to the very end. I’ve saved at 
least £10 over that towage, and, by James! I’ve 
seen times when a ship mauled about like this 
would have been bled for four times the amount 
before a tug would pluck her in.” 

“Then we are out of the wood now?” 


182 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


“We’ll get the canvas off her, and then you can 
go below and shave. You can sleep in a shore bed 
this night, if you choose, sir, and to-morrow we’ll 
see about fingering the salvage. There’ll be no 
trouble there now; we shall just have to ask for a 
check and Lloyds will pay it, and then you and 
the hands will take your share, and I — by James! 
Mr. Philipps, I shall be a rich man over this busi- 
ness. I shouldn’t be a bit surprised but what I 
finger a snug £500 as my share. Oh, sir. Heaven’s 
been very good to me over this, and I know it, 
and I’m grateful. My wife will be grateful too. I 
wish you could come to our chapel some day and 
see her.” 

“You deserve your luck. Captain, if ever a man 
did in this world, and, by Jove! we’ll celebrate it. 
We’ve been living on pig’s food for long enough. 
We’ll find the best hotel in Cardiff, and we’ll get the 
best dinner the chef there can produce. I want you 
to be my guest at that.” 

“I must ask you to excuse me,” said Kettle. 
“I’ve received a good deal just lately, and I’m 
thankful, and I want to say so. If you don’t mind, 
I’d rather say it alone.” 

‘ I understand. Skipper. You’re a heap better 
man than I am, and if you don’t mind, I’d like to 
shake hands with you. Thanks. We may not meet 
again, but I shall never forget you and what we’ve 
seen on this murderous old wreck of a ship. Hullo, 
there’s Cardiff not twenty minutes ahead. Well, I 
must go below and clean up after you’ve docked 
her.” 


CHAPTER VIII 

TO CAPTURE AN HEIRESS 

The Parakeet had discharged the last of her coal 
into the lighters alongside, had cast off from the 
mooring buoys, and was steaming out of the baking 
heat of Suez harbor on her way down toward 
the worse heat of the Red Sea beyond. The clatter 
and dirt of the working ships, with the smells of 
hot iron and black humanity, were dying out astern, 
and presently she slowed up to drop the pilot into 
his boat, and then stood on again along her course. 

A passenger, a young man of eight or nine-and- 
twenty, lounged on a camp-stool under the upper 
bridge awning, and watched the Parakeets captain 
as he walked briskly across and across, and pres- 
ently, when the little sailor faced him, he nodded as 
though he had decided something that was in his 
thoughts. 

“Well, sir?’^ said Captain Kettle. 

“I wish you wouldn’t look so anxious. We’ve 
started now, and may as well make up our minds 
to go through it comfortably.” 

“Quite so,” said Kettle. “I’m thinking out how 
we are to do this business in comfort— and safety,” 
and with that he resumed his walk. 

The man beside him had introduced himself when 
the black workers were carrying the Parakeet's 
cargo of coal in baskets from the holds to the 


184 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


lighters alongside; and Kettle had been rather 
startled to find that he carried a letter of introduc- 
tion from the steamboat’s owners. The letter gave 
him no choice of procedure. It stated with clear- 
ness that Mr. Hugh Wenlock, solicitor, had laid his 
wishes before them, and that they had agreed to further 
these wishes (through the agency of their servant — 
Captain Owen Kettle) in consideration of the pay- 
ment of £200 sterling. 

The Parakeet was a cargo tramp, and carried no 
passenger certificate, but a letter of recommendation 
like this was equivalent to a direct order, and Kettle 
signed Mr. Wenlock on to his crew list as “Doctor,” 
and put to sea with an anxious mind. 

Wenlock waited awhile, watching squalid Suez 
sink into the sea behind; and then he spoke again. 

“Look here. Captain,” he said, “those South 
Arabian ports have got a lot worse reputation than 
they really deserve. The people down there twenty 
years ago were a pack of pirates. I’ll grant you, 
but nowadays they know that if they get at any of 
their old games, a British gunboat promptly comes 
up next week and bombards them at two-mile 
range, and that’s not good enough. They may not be 
honest from inclination, but they’ve got the fear of 
the gunboat always handy, and that’s a wonderful 
civilizing power. I tell you, captain, you needn’t 
be fnghtened; that pirate business is exploded for 
now and always.” 

“I know all about the piratical hankerings of 
those South Arabian niggers, sir,” said Kettle stiffly, 
“and I know what they can do and what they 
can’t do as well as any man living. And I know 
also what I can do myself at a push, and 
the knowledge leaves me pretty comfortable. But 


TO CAPTURE AN HEIRESS 


185 


if you choose to think me frightened, I’ll own I am. 
It’s the navigation down there that gave me cold 
shivers the first moment you mentioned it.” 

“Why, it’s no worse than the Red Sea here, any- 
way.” 

“Red Sea’s bad, but you can get good charts of 
it and rely on them. South Arabian eoast is no 
better, and the charts aren’t worth the paper they’re 
printed on. There are bad tide-rips down there, 
sir, and there are bad reefs, and there’s bad fog, and 
the truth of it is, there’s no handier place to lose a 
ship in all the big, wide world.” 

“I wouldn’t like you to wreck the steamer down 
there. It might be awkward for me getting 
baek.” 

“Quite so,” said Kettle, “you’re thinking of your- 
self, and I don’t blame you. I’m thinking of myself 
also. I’m a man that’s met a great deal of mis- 
fortune, sir, and from one thing and another I’ve 
been eight years without a regular command. I had 
the luck to bring in a derelict the other day, and 
pocket a good salvage out of her, and my present 
owners heard of it, and they put me as master of 
this steamer, just because of that luck.” 

“Nothing like luck.” 

“If you don’t lose it. But I am not anxious to 
pile up this steamboat on some uncharted reef just 
beeause luck has left me, and have to wait another 
eight years before I find another command.” 

“And, as I say, I’m as keen as you are not to get 
the steamer wrecked, and if there’s any way she can 
be kept out of a dangerous area, and you can manage 
to set me ashore where I want in a boat, just you 
say, and I’ll meet you all I can. But at the same 
time. Skipper, if you don’t mind doing a swap, you 


186 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


might give me a good deal of help over my matter 
in retnm.’’ 

“I haven’t heard yonr business yet, sir. All you’ve 
told me is that you want to be set down in this 
place, Dunkhot, and be taken off again after you’ve 
stayed there four-and-twenty hours.” 

“Well, you see I didn’t want it talked over before- 
hand. If the newspapers got hold of the yam, and 
made a lot of fuss about it, they might upset a 
certain marriage that I’ve very much set my heart 
upon.” 

Captain Kettle looked puzzled. “I don’t seem to 
quite follow you, sir.” 

“You shall hear the tale from the beginning. We 
have plenty of time ahead of us just now. You 
remember the wreck of the Rangoon?^ ^ 

“She was coming home from East Indian ports, 
wasn’t she, and got on fire somewhere off Cape 
Guardafui? But that’ll have been twenty years 
back, in the old overland days, before the Ditch was 
opened. Only about ten of her people saved, if I 
remember.” 

“That’s about right,” said Wenlock, “though it’s 
twenty years ago now. She was full of Anglo- 
Indians, and their loss made a great sensation at 
the time. Amongst others was a Colonel Anderson, 
and his wife, and their child Teresa, aged nine ; and 
what made their deaths all the more sad was the 
fact that Anderson’s elder brother died just a week 
before, and he would have come home to find a 
peerage and large estates waiting for him.” 

“I can feel for that man,” said Kettle. 

“I can feel most for the daughter,” said Wenlock. 

“How do you mean, sir?” 

“Well, Colonel Anderson’s dead, and his wife’s 


TO CAPTURE AN HEIRESS 


187 


dead, but the daughter isn’t, or at any rate she 
was very much alive twelve months ago, that’s all. 
The whole lot of them, with others, got into one of 
the Rangoon' s boats, and after frizzling about at 
sea till they were nearly starved, got chucked on 
that South Arabian coast (which you say is so 
rocky and dangerous), and were drovmed in the 
process. All barring Teresa, that is. She was pulled 
out of the water by the local niggers, and was 
brought up by them, and I’ve absolutely certain 
information that not a year ago she was living in 
Dunkhot as quite a big personage in her way.” 

“And she’s ‘My Lady’ now, if she only knew?” 

“Well, not that. The title doesn’t descend in the 
female line, but Colonel Anderson made a will in 
her favor after she was bom, and the present earl, 
who’s got the estates, would have to shell out if 
she turned up again.” 

“My owners, in their letter, mentioned that you 
were a solicitor. Then you are employed by his 
lordship, sir?” 

Mr. Wenlock laughed. “Not much,” he said. “I’m 
on my own hook. Why, hang it all, Captain, you 
must see that no man of his own free will would 
be idiot enough to resurrect a long-forgotten niece 
just to make himself into a beggar.” 

“I don’t see why not, sir, if he got to know she 
was alive. Some men have consciences, and even a 
lord, I suppose, is a man.” 

“The present earl has far too good a time of it to 
worry about running a conscience. No, I bet he 
fights like a thief for the plunder, however clear a 
case we have to show him. And as he’s the man in 
possession and has plenty of ready cash for law 
expenses, the odds are he’ll turn out too big to 


188 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


worry at through all the courts, and we shall com- 
promise. I’d like that best myself. Cash down has 
a desirable feel about it.” 

“It has, sir,” said Kettle with a reminiscent sigh. 
“Even to pocket a tenth of what is rightfully yours 
is better than getting mixed up with that beastly 
law. But will the other relatives of the young lady, 
those that are employing you, I mean, agree to 
that?” 

• “Don’t I tell you. Captain, I’m on my own hook? 
There are no other relatives— or at least none that 
would take a ha’porth of interest in Teresa’s getting 
the estates. I’ve gone into the thing on sheer spec, 
and for what I can make out of it, and that, if all’s 
well, will be the whole lump.” 

“But how? The young lady may give you some- 
thing in her gi'atitude, of course, but you can’t 
expect it all.” 

“I do, though, and I tell you how I’m going to 
get it. I shall marry the fair Teresa. Simple as 
tumbling off a house.” 

Kettle drew himself up stiffly and walked to the 
other end of the bridge, and began ostentatiously 
to look with a professional eye over his vessel. 

Wenlock was quick to see the change. “Come, 
what is it now, Captain?” he asked with some 
surprise. 

“I don’t like the idea of those sort of marriages,” 
said the little sailor, acidly. 

Wenlock shrugged his shoulders good-humoredly. 

“Neither do I, and if I were a rich man, I 
wouldn’t have dreamed of it. Just think of what 
the girl probably is: she’s been with those niggers 
since she was quite a kid ; she’ll be quite uneducated ; 
I’m in hopes she’s good-looking and has a decent 


TO CAPTURE AN HEIRESS 


189 


figure ; but at the best she’ll be quite unpresentable 
till I’ve had her in hand for at least a couple of 
years, if then. Of course you’ll say there’s ‘romance’ 
about the thing. But then I don’t care tuppence 
about romance, and anyway it’s beastly uncon- 
fortable to live with.” 

“I was not looking at that point of view.” 

“Let me tell you how I was fixed,” said Wenlock 
with a burst of confidence. “I’d a small capital. 
So I qualified as a solicitor, and put up a door- 
plate, and waited for a practice. It didn’t come. 
Not a client drifted near me from month’s end to 
month’s end. And meanwhile the capital was drib- 
bling away. I felt I was getting on my back legs ; 
it was either a case of the Colonies or the work- 
house, and I’d no taste for either; and when the 
news of this girl Teresa came, I tell you I just 
jumped at the chance. I don’t want to marry her, 
of course; there are ten other girls I’d rather have 
as wife; but there was no other way out of the 
difficulty, so I just swallowed my squeamishness for 
good and always. See?” 

“It was Miss Teresa Anderson I was pitying,” 
said Kettle pointedly. 

“Good Lord, man, why? Isn’t it the finest thing 
in the world for her?” 

“It might be fine to get away from where she is, 
and land home to find a nice property waiting. 
But I don’t care to see a woman have a husband 
forced on her. It would be nobler of you, Mr. Wen- 
lock, to let the young lady get to England, and 
look round her for a while, and make her own 
choice.” 

“I’m too hard up to be noble,” said Wenlock drily. 
“I’ve not come here on philanthrcpjq and marrying 


190 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


that girl is part of mj business. Besides, hang it 
all, man, think of what she is, and think of what 
I am.” He looked himself up and down with a half 
humorous smile — “I know nice people at home who 
would be civil to her, and after all, hang it, I’m not 
unmarriageable personally.” 

“Still,” said Kettle doggedly, “I don’t like the 
idea of it.” 

“Then let me give you an inducement. I said I 
was not down here on philanthropy, and I don’t 
suppose you are either. You’ll have my passage 
money?” 

“Two and a-half per cent, of it is my commission. 
The rest goes to the owners, of course.” 

“Very well, then. In addition to that, if you’ll 
help this marriage on in the way I ask. I’ll give you 
£50.” 

“There’s no man living who could do more usefully 
with £50 if I saw my way of fingering it.” 

“I think I see what you mean. No, you won’t 
have to wait for it. I’ve got the money here in 
hard cash in my pocket ready for you to take over 
the minute it’s earned.” 

“I was wondering, sir, if I could earn it honor- 
ably. You must give me time to think this out. 
I’ll try and give you an answer after tea. And for 
the present I shall have to leave you. I’ve got to 
go through the ship’s papers : I have to be my own 
clerk on board here just now, though the Company 
did certainly promise me a much better ship if I 
beat up plenty of cargo, and made a good voyage 
of it with this.” 

The Parakeet worked her way along down the 
Red Sea at her steady nine knots, and Mr. Hugh 
Wenlock put a couple of bunk pillows on a canvas 


TO CAPTURE AN HEIRESS 


191 


boat-cover tinder the bridge deck awnings, and lay 
there and amused himself with cigarettes and a 
magazine. Captain Owen Kettle sat before a table 
in the chart-house with his head on one side, and a 
pen in his fingers, and went through accounts. But 
though Wenlock, when he had finished his magazine, 
quickly went off to sleep. Captain Kettle’s struggles 
with arithmetic were violent enough to keep him 
very thoroughly awake, and when a due proportion 
of the figures had been checked, he put the papers 
in a drawer, and was quite ready to tackle the 
next subject. 

He had not seen necessary to mention the fact to 
Mr. Wenlock, but while that young man was talk- 
ing of the Miss Teresa Anderson, who at present 
was “quite a big personage in her way” at Dunk- 
hot, a memory had come to him that he had heard 
of the lady before in somewhat less prosaic terms. 
All sailormen who have done business on the great 
sea highway between West and East during recent 
years have had the yam given to them at one time 
or another, and most of them have regarded it as 
gratuitous legend. Kettle was one of these. But 
he was beginning to think there was something 
more in it than a mere sailor’s yam, and he was 
anxious to see if there was any new variation in the 
telling. 

So he sent for Murray, his mate, a smart young 
sailor of the newer school, who preferred to be 
called “chief officer,” made him sit, and commenced 
talk of a purely professional nature. Finally he 
said: “And since I saw you last, the schedule’s 
changed. We call in at Dunkhot, for that passenger 
Mr. Wenlock to do some private business ashore, 
before we go on to our Persian Gulf ports.” 


192 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


Murray repeated the name thouglitfull3^. “Dunk- 
hot? Let’s see, that’s on the South Arabian coast, 
about a day’s steam from Aden, and a beast of a 
place to get at, so I’ve heard. Oh, and of course, 
that’s the place where the She-Sultan, or Queen, or 
whatever she calls herself, is boss.” 

“So there is really a woman of that kind there, 
is there? I’d heard of her, like everybody else has, 
but I thought she was only a yam.” 

“No, she’s there in the flesh, sir, right enough; 
lots of flesh, according to what I’ve gathered. A 
serang of one of the B. and I. boats, who’d been 
in Dunkhot, told me about her only last year. She 
makes war, leads her troops, cuts off heads, and 
does the Eastern potentate up to the mark. The 
serang said she was English, too, though I don’t 
believe much in that. One-tenth English would 
probably be more near the truth. The odds are 
she’ll be Eurasian, and those snuff-and-butter colored 
ladies, when they get amongst people blacker than 
themselves, always try to ignore their own lick of 
the tar-bmsh.” 

“Fat, is she?” 

“The serang said she was a big buffalo bull of a 
woman, with a terror of a temper. I don’t know 
what’s Mr. Wenlock’s business, sir; but whether he 
wants to start a drj^-goods agency, or merely to 
arrange for smuggling in some rifles, he’d better 
make up his mind to square her first and foremost. 
She will have a finger in every pie. She’s as curious 
as a monkey, too, and there’s no doing anything 
without letting her know. And when she says a 
thing, it’s got to be done.” 

“Is she the head chief’s favorite wife, then?” 

“That’s the funny part of it: she isn’t manded. 


TO CAPTURE AN HEIRESS 


193 


These Orientals always get husbands early as a 
general thing, and you’d have thought that in her 
juvenile days, before she got power, they’d have 
married her to some one about the town, whether 
she liked it or not. But it seems they didn’t, be- 
cause she said she’d certainly poison any man if 
they sent her into his zenana. And later on, when 
she came to be boss, she still kept to spinsterhood. 
Guess there wasn’t any man about the place white 
enough to suit her taste.” 

“H’m. What you’ve told me seems to let daylight 
on to things.” 

“Beg pardon, sir?” 

Captain Kettle put his hand kindly on Murray’s 
shoulder. “Don’t ask me to explain now, my lad, 
but when the joke comes you shall share the laugh. 
There’s a young man on this ship (I don’t mind tell- 
ing you in confidence) whose ways I don’t quite 
like, and I think he’s going to get a lesson.” 

He went out then under the awnings of the bridge 
deck, and told Wenlock that he would probably be 
able to earn his fee for helping on the marriage, and 
Wenlock confidently thought that he quite under- 
stood the situation. 

“Skipper’s a bit of a methody,” thought Mr. Hugh 
Wenlock, “but his principles don’t go very deep 
when there are fifty sovereigns to be earned. Well, 
he’s a useful man, and if he gets me snugly married 
to that little girl, he’ll be cheap at the price.” 

The Parakeets voyage to Dunkhot was not swift. 
Eight-and-a-half knots was her most economical 
pace for coal consumption, and at that gait she 
steamed. With a reputation to make with his new 
owners, and two and a-half per cent, commission 
on all profits, Kettle had developed into a regular 
13 


194 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


glutton for cargo ; and the knowledge of men and 
places whicli lie had so laboriously acquired in 
former days served him finely. Three times he got 
doles of cargo at good stiff freights at points where 
few other men would have dreamed of looking. He 
was an ideal man for the master of an ocean tramp. 
He was exactly honest; he had a world of misfor- 
tunes behind to spur him on ; he was quick of deci- 
sion ; and he had developed a nose for cargo, and a 
knack of extorting it from merchants, that were 
little short of miraculous. And, in fact, if things 
went on as they had started, he stood a very good 
chance of making 50 per cent, on the Parakeets 
capital for the voyage, and so earning promotion 
to one of the firm’s better ships. 

But though in the many days of his adversity 
Captain Kettle had never shunned any risks which 
came in his way, with this new prosperity fresh and 
pleasant at his feet, he was beginning to tell himself 
that risks were foolish things. He arrived off Dunk- 
hot and rang off his engines, and frowned angrily 
at the shore. 

The town stood on an eminence, snugly walled, 
and filled with cool, square houses. At one side, the 
high minaret of a mosque stood up like a bayonet, 
and at the other, standing in a ring of garden, was 
a larger building, which seemed to call itself palace. 
There was a small fringe of cultivation beside the 
walls of the town, and beyond was arid desert, 
which danced and shimmered under the violent sun. 

But all this lay small and far off, like a tiny 
picture in some huge frame, and showing only 
through the glass. A maze of reefs guarded the 
shore, and tore up the sleek Indian Ocean swells 
into spouting breakers ; and though there was 


TO CAPTURE AN HEIRESS 


195 


anchorage inside, tenanted indeed by a score of 
sailing craft, the way to it was openly perilous. 
And so for the present the Parakeet lay to, rolling 
outside the entrance, flying a pilot jaek, and waiting 
developments. 

Captain Kettle might have his disquieting 
thoughts, still outwardly he was cool. But Mr. 
Hugh Wenlock was on deck in the sprucest of his 
apparel, and was visibly anxious and fidgety, as 
befitted a man who shortly expected to enter into 
the bonds of matrimony. 

A double-ended boat came off presently, manned 
by naked Arabs, and steered by a man in a white 
burnous. She swept up alongside, caught a rope 
and made fast, and the man in white introduced 
himself as a pilot. They are all good Mohammedans 
down there, or nominally, and so of course there 
was no question of a clean bill of health. Islam is 
not impious enough to eheck the spread of any 
disease whieh Allah may see good to send for its 
chastening. 

The pilot wanted to take them in at once. He 
spoke some English, and carried an air of eonfidence. 
He could guide them through the reefs in the most 
complete of safety, and he could guarantee fine 
openings for trade, once inside. 

‘T dare say,” grunted Kettle under his breath, “but 
you’re a heap too uncertificated for my taste. Why, 
you don’t even offer a book of forged logs to try 
and work off your humbug with some look of truth. 
No, I know the kind of pilot you are. You’d pile 
up the steamboat on the first convenient reef, and 
then be one of the first to come and loot her.” — He 
turned to Murray: “Now, look here, Mr. Mate. I’ll 
leave you in charge, and see you keep steam up and 


196 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


don’t leave the deck. Don’t let any of these niggers 
come on board on any pretence whatever, and if 
they try it on, steam out to sea. I’ll get through 
Mr. Wenlock’s business ashore as quick as I can, and 
perhaps pick up a ton or two of cargo for our- 
selves.” 

Below, in the dancing boat which ground against 
the steamer’s side, the pilot clamored that a ladder 
might be thrown to him so that he might come on 
board and take the Parakeet forthwith into the 
anchorage; and to him again Kettle turned, and 
temporized. He must go ashore himself first, he 
said, and see what offer there was of trade, before 
he took the steamer in. To which the pilot, though 
visibly disappointed, saw fit to agree, as no better 
offer was forthcoming. 

“Now, sir,” said Kettle to Wenlock, “into the boat 
with you. The less time that’s wasted, the better 
I shall be pleased.” 

“All right,” said Wenlock, pointing to a big pack- 
age on the deck. “Just tell some of your men to 
shove that case down into the boat, and I’m 
ready.” 

Kettle eyed the bulky box with disfavor. “What’s 
in it?” he asked. 

“A present or a bribe; whichever you care to call 
it. If you want to know precisely, it’s rifles. 
I thought they would be most acceptable.” 

“Rifles are liked hereabouts. Is it for a sort of 
introductory present?” 

“Well, if you must know. Captain, it’s occurred to 
me that Teresa is probably an occupant of some- 
body’s harem, and that I shall have to buy her off 
from her husband. Hence the case of rifles.” 

A queer look came over Captain Kettle’s face. 


TO CAPTURE AN HEIRESS 


197 


^‘And you’d still marry this woman if she had an- 
other husband living?” 

“Of course. Haven’t I told you that I’ve thought 
the whole thing thoroughly over already, and I’m 
not inclined to stick at trifles? But I may tell you 
that divorce is easy in these Mohammedan countries, 
and I shall take care to get the girl set legally free 
before we get away from here. You don’t catch me 
getting mixed with bigamy.” 

“But tell me. Is a Mohammedan marriage made 
here binding for an Englishman?” 

“It’s as legally binding as if the Archbishop of 
Canterbury tied the knot.” 

“Very well,” said Kettle. “Now let me tell you, 
sir, for the last time, that I don’t like what you’re 
going to do. To my mind, it’s not a nice thing 
marrying a woman that you evidently despise, just 
for her money.” 

Wenlock flushed. “Look here,” he said, “I refuse to 
be lectured, especially by you. Aren’t you under 
promise to get £50 from me the moment I’m safely 
married? And didn’t you fairly jump at the chance 
of Angering it.” 

Captain Kettle did not hit this man who cast such 
an unpleasant imputation on him; he did not even 
let him feel the lash of his tongue in return. He 
merely smiled grimly, and said: “Get down into the 
boat, you and your case of rifles.” 

For the moment Wenlock started and hesitated. 
He seemed to detect something ominous in this 
order. But then he took a brace on his courage, 
and after a couple of deck hands had lowered the 
rifles into the dancing boat, he clambered gingerly 
down after them, and sat himself beside the white- 
robed man in the stern sheets. Kettle followed, and 


198 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


the boat headed off for the opening between the 
reefs. 

The Indian Ocean swells swung beneath them, and 
presently were breaking on the grim stone barriers 
on either hand in a roar of sound. The triangular 
dorsal fins of a couple of sharks convoyed them in, 
in case of accidents; and overhead a crowd of sea- 
fowl screamed and swooped and circled. But none 
of these things interested them. The town ahead, 
which jerked nearer to every tug of the oars, held 
the eye. In it was Teresa Anderson, heiress, a per- 
sonage of whom each of them had his own private 
conception. In it also were fanatical Arabs, whom 
they hoped the fear of shadowy British gunboats 
would deter from open piracy. 

The boat passed between a cluster of ragged 
shipping which swayed at the anchorage, and Wen- 
lock might have stared with curious eyes (had he 
been so minded) on real dhows which had even then 
got real slaves ready for market in their stuffy 
’tween decks. But he was gazing with a fascinated 
stare at the town. Over the arch of the water-gate, 
for which they were heading, was what at first 
appeared to be a frieze of small rounded balls ; but 
a nearer view resolved these into human heads, in 
various stages of desiccation. Evidently justice in 
Dunkhot was determined that the criminal who 
once passed through its hands should no more tread 
the paths of unrighteousness. 

The boat landed against a jetty of stone, and they 
stepped out dry shod. Wenlock stared at the gate 
with its dressing of heads as though they fascinated 
him. 

“And Teresa will have been brought up within 
sight of all this,” he murmured to himself, “and will 


TO CAPTURE AN HEIRESS 


199 


be accustomed to it. Fancy marrying a woman 
who has spent twenty years of her life in the neigh- 
borhood of all this savagery.” 

“Strong place in its way,” said Kettle, squinting 
up at the brass cannon on the walls. “Those guns 
up there are well kept, you can see. Of course one 
of our cheapest fourpenny gunboats could knock the 
whole shop into bricks in half an hour at three-mile 
range; but it’s strong enough to hold out against 
any niggers along the coast here, and that’s all the 
Queen here aims at. By the way, Emir, not Queen, 
is what she calls herself, so the pilot tells me. I sup- 
pose she thinks that as she’s doing a man’s job in a 
man’s way, she may as well take a full man’s ticket.” 

They passed in through the gate, the sentries 
staring at them curiously, and once inside, in the full 
heat and smell of the narrow street beyond. Wen- 
lock said: “Look here. Skipper, you’re resourceful, 
and you know these out-of-the-way places. How 
had we better start to find the girl?” 

Kettle glanced coolly round at the grim buildings 
and the savage Arabs who jostled them, and said, 
with fine sarcasm: “Well, sir, as there doesn’t appear 
to be a policeman about, I should recommend you 
to apply at the post office.” 

“I don’t want to be mocked.” 

“Then, if you’ll take the tip from me, you’ll crowd 
back to my steamboat as fast as you can go. 
You’ll find it healthier.” 

“I’m going on with it,” said Wenlock doggedly. 
“And I ask you to earn your £50, and give me 
help.” 

“Then, if you distinctly ask me to help you on 
into trouble like that, of course, the best thing to 
do is to go straight on to the palace.” 


200 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


“Show the way, then,” said Wenlock curtly. 

Kettle gave the word to the white-robed pilot, 
and together they set off down the narrow winding 
streets, with an ever-increasing train of Arabs and 
negroes following in their wake. Wenlock said 
nothing as he walked, but it was evident from the 
working of his face that his mind was very full. 
But Kettle looked about him with open interest, 
and thoughts in verse about this Eastern town came 
to him with pleasant readiness. 

The royal residence was the large building en- 
circled with gardens which they had seen from the 
sea, and they entered it with little formality. There 
was no trouble either about obtaining an audience. 
The Lady Emir had, it appeared, seen the steamer’s 
approach with her own eyes ; indeed, the whole of 
Dunkhot was excited by such an unusual arrival; 
and the Head of the State was as human in her 
curiosity as the meanest nigger among her sub- 
jects. 

The audience hall was imposing. It was bare 
enough, according to the rule of those heated East- 
ern lands, but it had an air of comfort and coolness, 
and in those parts where it was not severely plain, 
the beauty of its architecture was delicious. Armed 
guards to the number of some forty men were 
posted round the walls, and at the further end, 
apparently belonging to the civil population, were 
some dozen other men squatting on the floor. In 
the centre of the room was a naked wretch in 
chains; but sentence was hurriedly pronounced on 
him, and he was hustled away as the two English- 
men entered, and they found themselves face to face 
with the only woman in the room, the supreme ruler 
of this savage South Arabian coast town. 


TO CAPTURE AN HEIRESS 


201 


She was seated on a raised divan, propped by 
cushions, and in front of her was a huge water-pipe 
at which she occasionally took a meditative pull. 
She was dressed quite in Oriental fashion, in trou- 
sers, zouave jacket, sash, and all the rest of it; but 
she was unmistakably English in features, though 
strongly suggestive of the Boadicea. She was a 
large, heavily-boned woman, enormously covered 
with flesh, and she dandled across her knees that 
very unfeminine sceptre, an English cavalryman’s 
sword. But the eye neglected these details, and was 
irresistibly drawn by the strongness of her face. 
Even Kettle was almost awed by it. 

But Captain Owen Kettle was not a man who 
could be kept in awe for long. He took off his 
helmet, marched briskly up toward the divan, and 
bowed. 

“Good afternoon, your Ladyship,” he said. “I 
trust I see you well. I’m Captain Kettle, master of 
that steamboat now lying in your roads, and this 
is Mr. Wenlock, a passenger of mine, who heard that 
you were English, and has come to put you in the 
way of some property at home.” 

The lady sat more upright, and set back her great 
shoulders. “I am English,” she said. “I was called 
in the Giaour faith Teresa Anderson.” 

“That’s the name,” said Kettle. “Mr. Wenlock’s 
come to take you away to step into a nice thing at 
home.” 

“I am Emir here. Am I asked to be Emir in your 
country?” 

“Why, no,” said Kettle; “that job’s fllled already, 
and we aren’t thinking of making a change. Our 
present Emir in England (who, by the way, is a 
lady like yourself) seems to suit us very well. No, 


202 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


you’ll be an ordinary small-potato citizen, like every- 
body else, and you will probably find it a bit of a 
change.” 

“I do not onderstand,” said the woman. “I have 
not spoke your language since I was child. Speak 
what you say again.” 

“I’ll leave it to Mr. Wenlock, your Majesty, if 
you’ve no objections, as he’s the party mostly inter- 
ested; and if you’d ask one of your young men to 
bring me a long drink and a chair. I’ll be obliged. 
It’s been a hot walk up here. I see you don’t mind 
smoke,” he added, and lit a cheroot. 

Now, it was clear from the attitude of the guards 
and the civilians present, that Kettle was jostling 
heavily upon court etiquette, and at first the Lady 
Emir was very clearly inclined to resent it, and had 
sharp orders for repression ready upon her lips. But 
she changed her mind, perhaps through some mem- 
ory that by blood she was related to this noncha- 
lant race; and presently cushions were brought, on 
which Captain Kettle bestowed himself tailor-fashion 
(with his back cautiously up against a wall), and 
then a negro slave knelt before him and offered 
sweet sticky sherbet, which he drank with a wry 
face. 

But in the mean while Mr. Wenlock was stating 
his case with small forensic eloquence. The sight of 
Miss Teresa Anderson in the flesh awed him. He 
had pictured to himself some slim, quiet exile, per- 
haps a little gauche and timid, but at any rate 
amenable to instruction and to his will. He had 
forgotten the developing power of tropical suns. 
The woman before him, whose actual age was 
twenty-nine, looked fifty, and even for a desperate 
man like himself was impossible as a wife in England. 


TO CAPTURE AN HEIRESS 


203 


He felt daunted before her already. It flashed 
through his mind that it was she who had ordered 
those grisly heads to be stuck above the water-gate, 
and he heartily wished himself away back on the 
steamer, tramping for cargo. He was not wanting 
in pluck as a usual thing, this unsuccessful solicitor, 
but before a woman like this, with such a record 
behind her, a man may well be scared and yet not 
be accused of cowardice. 

But the Lady Emir looked on Wenlock in a very 
different way to that in which she had regarded 
Kettle. Mr. Wenlock possessed (as indeed he had 
himself pointed out on the Parakeet) a fine outward 
appearance, and in fact anywhere he could have been 
remarked on as a personable man. And things came 
about as Kettle shrewdly anticipated they would. 
The Lady Emir had not remained unmarried all 
these years through sheer distaste for matrimony. 
She had been celibate through an unconquerable 
pride of blood. None but men of colored race had 
been around her in all her wars, her governings, and 
her diplomacies ; and always she had been too proud 
to mate with them. But here now stood before her 
a male of her own race, handsome, upstanding, and 
obviously impressed by her power and majesty. He 
would not rule her; he would not even attempt a 
mastery ; she would still be Emir — and a wife. The 
chance had never occurred to her before; might 
never occur again. She was quick to make her de- 
cision. 

Ruling potentates are not as other folk with their 
love affairs, and the Lady Emir of Dunkhot (forget- 
ting that she was once Teresa Anderson, and a 
modest English maiden) unconsciously fell in with 
the rule of her caste. The English speech, long 


204 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


disused, came to her unhandily, but the purport of 
what she said was plain. She made proclamation 
that the Englishman Wenlock should there and then 
become her husband, and let slaves fetch the mullah 
to unite them before the sun had dropped below 
another bar of the windows. 

She did not ask her future husband’s wishes or 
his permission. She simply stated her sovereign will 
and looked that it should be carried out forthwith. 

A couple of slaves scurried out on their missions — 
evidently their Emir was accustomed to have her 
orders carried out with promptness — and for long 
enough Wenlock stood wordless in front of the divan, 
far more like a criminal than a prospective bride- 
groom. The lady, with the tube of the water-pipe 
between her lips, puffed smoke and made no further 
speech. She had stated her will: the result would 
follow in due course. 

But at last Wenlock, as though wrenching himself 
into wakefulness out of some horrid dream, turned 
wildly to Kettle, and in a torrent of words implored 
for rescue. 

The little sailor heard him quite unmoved. “You 
asked my help,” he said, “in a certain matter, and 
I’ve given it, and things have turned out just as I’ve 
guessed they would. You maundered about your 
dear Teresa on my steamboat till I was nearly sick, 
and, by James! you’ve got her now, and no error 
about it.” 

“But you said you didn’t approve,” cried the 
wretched man. 

“I quite know what I said,” retorted Kettle 
grimly. “I didn’t approve of your way. But this 
is different. You’re not a very fine specimen, but 
anyway you’re English, and it does good to the old 





{Page 205 , 


TO CAPTURE AN HEIRESS 


205 


shop at home to have English people for kings and 
queens of foreign countries. I’ve got a theory about 
that.’’ 

Now the Lady Emir was not listening to all this 
tirade by any means unmoved. To begin with, it 
was not etiquette to speak at all in her presence if 
unaddressed, and to go on with, although she did 
not understand one word in ten of what was being 
spoken, she gathered the gist of it, and this did not 
tend to compose her. She threw away the snaky stem 
of water-pipe, and gripped both hands on the troop- 
er’s sword, till the muscles stood out in high relief. 

“Do you say,” she demanded, “you on willing 
marry me?” 

“Yes,” said Wenlock, with sullen emphasis. 

She turned her head, and gave orders in Arabic. 
With marvellous readiness, as though it was one 
of the regular appointments of the place, a couple of 
the guards trundled a stained wooden block into 
the middle of the floor, another took his station 
beside it with an ominous-looking axe poised over 
his shoulder, and almost before Wenlock knew what 
was happening, he was pinned by a dozen men at 
wrist and ankle, and thrust down to kneel with his 
neck over the block. 

“Do you say,” the Lady Emir repeated, “you 
on willing marry me?” 

“I’m a British subject,” Wenlock shouted. “I’ve a 
Foreign Office passport in my pocket. I’ll appeal 
to my Government over this.” 

“My lad,” said Kettle, “you won’t have time to 
appeal. The lady isn’t being funny. She means 
square biz. If you don’t be sensible, and see things 
in the same way she does, it’ll be one che-opp, and 
what happens afterward won’t interest you.” 


206 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


‘^Those spikes,” said Wenlock faintly. 

“Above the water-gate?” said Kettle. “Queer, but 
the same thing oceurred to me, too. You’d feel a bit 
lonely stuck up there getting sun-dried.” 

“I’ll marry her.” 

“You’d better spread a bit more politeness about,” 
Kettle advised. “It will be all the more comfortable 
for you afterward if you do.” And so Wenlock, 
with desperation nerving him, poured out all the 
pretty speeches which he had in store, and which 
he had looked to use to this very woman under 
such very different circumstances. But he did not 
even suggest taking his future spouse back to Eng- 
land. 

She, too, when she graciously pardoned his pre- 
vious outburst, mentioned her decision on this matter 
also. 

“I am Emir here,” she said, “and I could not be 
Emir in your England without many fights. So 
here I shall stay, and you with me. When there is 
war, you shall ride at my side ; in peace I will give 
you a governorship over a ward of this town, from 
which you can get your taxes. And if there are 
children, you shall bring them up.” 

The mullah, who knew better than to keep his 
ruler waiting, had come in, and they were forthwith 
married, solemnly and irrevocably, according to the 
rites and ceremonies of the Mohammedan Church, 
as practised in the kingdom of Dunkhot. And in 
witness thereof. Captain Kettle wrote his name 
from left to right, in contradistinction to all the 
other signatories, who wrote from right to left, 
except the bridegroom. 

“And now, Mr. Wenlock, if you please,” said Kettle, 
“as you’re comfortably tied to the lady of your 


TO CAPTURE AN HEIRESS 


207 


choice, I’ll trouble you for that fee you prom- 
ised.” 

“I’ll see you in somewhere hotter than Arabia,” 
said the bridegroom, mopping his pale face. 

“Now look,” said Kettle, “I’m not going to scrap 
with you here, and I don’t want to break up this 
happy home with domestic unpleasantness; but if 
you don’t hand me over that £50, I shall ask your 
good lady to get it for me.” 

Wenlock sullenly handed out a note. 

“Thank you. I know you feel injured, but I’m 
earning this money exactly according to promise, 
and of you don’t quite like what’s been done, you 
must remember that it’s your own fault for not 
wording the agreement a bit more carefully. And 
now, as I seem to have got through my business 
here, if it’s agreeable to all parties. I’ll be going. 
Good-by, Mrs. Wenlock, madam. Let me call you by 
your name for the first time.” 

The Lady Emir set back her great shoulders. 
“That is not my name,” she said. “I am Emir. 
My name does not change.” 

“Beg pardon,” said Kettle, “he takes yours, does 
he? Didn’t know that was the custom of this 
country. Well, good-afternoon.” 

“But do you want,” said the lady, “no present?” 

“Thank you,” said Kettle, with a cock of the 
head, “but I take presents from no one. What bit 
of a living I get, your ladyship, I earn.” 

“I do not onderstand. But you are sailor. You 
have ship. You wish cargo?” 

Captain Kettle snapped his fingers ecstatically. 
“Now, ma’am, there you’ve hit it. Cargo’s what I 
do want. I’ll have to tell you that freights are up 
a good deal just now, and you’ll have to pay for 


208 


A MAvSTER OF FORTUNE 


accommodation, but my ship’s a good one, and my 
firm’s reliable, and will see that you are dealt by 
honest at the other end.” 

“I do not onderstand.” 

course you don’t, your Majesty; of course you 
don’t. Ladies like you don’t have to bother with 
the shipping trade. But just you give me a line to 
the principal merchants in the town saying that 
you’d like me to have a few tons of their stuff, and 
that’ll do. I guess that what your ladyship likes 
round here is usually done.” 

‘‘You wish me write. I will write. Now we will 
wash liands, and there is banquet.” 

And so it came to pass that, some twenty-four 
hours later. Captain Kettle returned to the Parakeet 
sun-scorched, and flushed with success, and relieved 
the anxious Murray from his watch. The mate was 
naturally curious to know what happened ashore. 

“Let me get a glass of Christian beer to wash all 
their sticky nastinesses from my neck, and I’ll tell 
you,” said Kettle, and he did with fine detail and 
circumstance. 

“Well, Wenlock’s got his heiress anyway,” said 
Murray, with a sigh, when the tale was over. “I 
suppose we may as well get under way now, sir.” 

“Not much,” said Kettle jubilantly. “Why, man, 
I’ve squeezed every ton of cargo they have in the 
place, and stuck them for freights in a way that 
would surprise you. Here’s the tally: 270 bags of 
cofiee, 700 packets of dates, 350 baskets of figs, and 
all for London. And, mark you,” said Kettle, hitting 
the table, “that or more’ll be waiting for me there 
every time I come, and no other skipper need apply.” 

“H’m,” said the mate thoughtfully; “but will Wen- 
lock be as civil and limp next time you call, sir? ’ 


TO CAPTURE A HEIRESS 


209 


Captain Kettle winked pleasantly, and put a fifty- 
pound note in his lock-up drawer. “That’s all right, 
my lad. No fear of Master Wenlock getting his tail 
up. If you’d seen the good lady, his wife, you’d 
know why. That’s the man that went hunting an 
heiress, Mr. Murray; and by the holy James he’s 
got her, and no error.” 

14 


CHAPTER IX 


A MATTER OF JUSTICE 

It was quite evident that the man wanted some- 
thing ; but Captain Kettle did not choose definitely 
to ask for his wishes. Over-curiosity is not a thing 
that pays with Orientals. Stolid indifference, on the 
other hand, may earn easy admiration. 

But at last the man took his courage in a firmer 
grip, and came up from the Parakeet^ s lower deck, 
where the hands were working cargo, and advanced 
under the bridge deck awnings to Captain Kettle’s 
long chair and salaamed low before him. 

Kettle seemed to see the man for the first time. 
He looked up from the accounts he was laboring 
at. “Well?” he said, curtly. 

It was clear the Arab had no English. It was 
clear also that he feared being watched by his fellow 
countrymen in the lighter which was discharging 
date bags alongside. He manoeuvred till the broad 
of his back covered his movements, materialized 
somehow or other a scrap of paper from some fold 
of his burnous, dropped this into Kettle’s lap with- 
out any perceptible movement of either his arms or 
hands, and then gave another stately salaam and 
moved away to the place from which he had come. 

“If you are an out-of-work conjuror,” said Kettle 
to the retreating figure, “you’ve come to the wrong 
place to get employment here.” 

The Arab passed out of sight without once turning 


A MATTER OF JUSTICE 


211 


Ills head, and Kettle glanced down at the screw of 
paper which lay on his knees, and saw on it a 
scrawl of writing. 

“Hnllo,” he said, “postman, were you; not con- 
juror? I didn’t expect any mail here. However, let’s 
see. Murray’s writing, by James!” he muttered, as 
he flattened out the grimy scrap of paper, and then 
he whistled with surprise and disgust as he read. 

“Hear Captam,” the letter ran. ^^Fve got into the 
deuce of a mess, and if you can bear a hand to pull 
me out, it would be a favor I should never forget. 
I got caught up that side street to the left past the 
mosque, but they covered my head with a cloth 
directly after, and 'hustled me on for half an hour, 
and where I am now, the dickens only knows. Ifs 
a cellar. But perhaps bearer may know, who^sgot 
my watch. The trouble was about a woman, a 
pretty little piece who I was photographing. You 
see ” 

And here the letter broke off. 

“That’s the worst of these fancy, high-toned 
mates,” Kettle grumbled. “What does he want to 
go ashore for at a one-eyed hole like this? There 
are no saloons — and besides he isn’t a drinking man. 
Your new-fashioned mate isn’t. There are no girls 
for him to kiss— seeing that they are all Mohamme- 
dans, and wear a veil. And as for going round 
with that photography box of his, I wonder he 
hasn’t more pride. I don’t like to see a smart 
young fellow like him, that’s got his master’s ticket 
all new and ready in his chest, bringing himself 
down to the level of a common, dirty-haired artist. 
Well, Murray’s got a lot to learn before he finds an 
owner fit to trust him with a ship of his own.” 


212 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


Kettle read the hurried letter through a second 
time, and then got up out of his long chair, and 
put on his spruce white drill uniform coat, and ex- 
changed his white canvas shoes for another pair 
more newly pipeclayed. His steamer might merely 
be a common cargo tramp, the town he was going 
to visit ashore might be merely the usual savage 
settlement one meets with on the Arabian shore of 
the Persian Gulf, but the little sailor did not dress 
for the admiration of fashionable crowds. He was 
smart and spruce always out of deference to his 
own self-respect. 

He went up to the second mate at the tally desk 
on the main deck below, and gave him some in- 
structions. “I’m going ashore,” he said, “and leave 
you in charge. Don’t let too many of these niggers 
come aboard at once, and tell the steward to keep 
all the doors to below snugly fastened. I locked the 
chart-house myself when I came out. Have you 
heard about the mate?” 

“No, sir.” 

“Ah, I thought the news would have been spread 
well about the ship before it came to me. He’s got 
in trouble ashore, and I suppose I must go, and see 
the Kady, and get him bailed out.” 

The second mate wiped the dust and perspiration 
from his face with his bare arm, and leant on the 
tally-desk, and grinned. Here seemed to be an 
opportunity for the relaxation of stiff official rela- 
tions. “What’s tripped him?” he asked. “Skirt or 
photographing?’ ’ 

“He will probably tell you himself when he comes 
back,” said Kettle coldly. “I shall send him to his 
room for three days when he gets on board.” 

The second mate pulled his face into seriousness. 


A MATTER OF JUSTICE 213 

“I don’t suppose he got into trouble intentionally, 
sir. ’ ’ 

“Probably not, but that doesn^t alter the fact 
that he has managed it somehow. I don’t engage 
my mates for amusements of that kind, Mr. Grain. 
I’ve got them here to work, and help me do my 
duty by the owners. If they take up low class 
trades like artisting, they must be prepared to 
stand the consequences. You’ll remember the orders 
I’ve given you? If I’m wanted, you’ll say I’ll prob- 
ably be back by tea.” 

Captain Kettle went off then in a shore-boat, past 
a small fleet of pearling dhows, which rolled at 
their anchors, and after a long pull — for the sea was 
shallow, and the anchorage lay five miles out — 
stepped on to the back of a burly Arab, and was 
carried the last mile dry-shod. Parallel to him were 
lines of men carrying out cargo to the lighters which 
would tranship it to the Parakeet^ and Kettle looked 
upon these with a fine complacency. 

His tramping for cargo had been phenomenally 
successful. He was filling his holds at astonishingly 
heavy freights. And not only would this bring him 
credit with his owners, which meant promotion in 
due course to a larger ship, but in the mean time, 
as he drew his 2V2 per cent, on the profits, it repre- 
sented a very comfortable matter of solid cash for 
that much-needing person himself. He hugged him- 
self with pleasure when he thought of this new-found 
prosperity. It represented so many things which he 
would be able to do for his wife and family, which 
through so many years narrow circumstances had 
made impossible. 

The burly Arab on whose hips he rode pick-a-back 
stepped out of the water at last, and Kettle jumped 


214 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


down from his perch, and picked his way daintily 
among the litter of the foreshore toward the white 
houses of the town which lay beyond. 

It was the first time he had set foot there. So 
great was his luck at the time, that he had not been 
forced to go ashore in the usual way drumming up 
cargo. The shippers had come off begging him to 
become their carrier, and he had mulcted them in 
heavy freights accordingly. So he stepped into the 
town with many of the feelings of a conqueror, and 
demanded to be led to the office of a man with 
whom he had done profitable business that very 
morning. 

Of course, ‘‘office” in the Western meaning of the 
term there was none. The worthy Rad el Moussa 
transacted affairs on the floor of his general sitting- 
room, and stored his merchandise in the bed-cham- 
bers, or wherever it would be out of reach of pilfering 
fingers. But he received the little sailor with fine 
protestations of regard, and (after some giggles and 
shuffling as the women withdrew) inducted him to 
the dark interior of his house, and set before him 
delicious coffee and some doubtful sweetmeats. 

Kettle knew enough about Oriental etiquette not 
to introduce the matter on which he had come at 
the outset of the conversation. He passed and 
received the necessary compliments first, endured a 
discussion of local trade prospects, and then by an 
easy gradation led up to the powers of the local 
Kady. He did not speak Arabic himself, and Rad el 
Moussa had no English. But they had both served 
a life apprenticeship to sea trading, and the curse 
of the Tower of Babel had very little power over 
them. In the memories of each there were garnered 
scraps from a score of spoken languages, and when 


A MATTER OF JUSTICE 


215 


these failed, they could always draw on the unlim- 
ited vocabulary of the gestures and the eyes. And 
for points that were really abstruse, or which re- 
quired definite understanding, there always remained 
the charcoal stick and the explanatory drawing on 
the face of a whitewashed wall. 

When the conversation had lasted some half an 
hour by the clock, and a slave brought in a second 
relay of sweetmeats and thick coffee, the sailor 
mentioned, as it were incidentally, that one of his 
officers had got into trouble in the town. “It’s 
quite a small thing,” he said lightly, “but I want 
him back as soon as possible, because there’s work 
for him to do on the steamer. See what I mean?” 

Rad el Moussa nodded gravely. “Savvy plenty,” 
said he. 

Now Kettle knew that the machinery of the law 
in these small Arabian coast towns was concen- 
trated in the person of the Kady, who, for practical 
purposes, must be made to move by that lubricant 
known as palm oil ; and so he produced some coins 
from his pocket and lifted his eyebrows inquiringly. 

Rad el Moussa nodded again, and made careful 
inspection of the coins, turning them one by one 
with his long brown fingers, and biting those he 
fancied most as a test of their quality. Finally, he 
selected a gold twenty-franc piece and two sover- 
eigns, balanced and chinked them carefully in his 
hand, and then slipped them into some private 
receptacle in his wearing apparel. 

“I say,” remarked Kettle, “that’s not for you 
personally, old tintacks. That’s for the Kady.” 

Rad pointed majestically to his own breast. “El 
Kady,” he said. 

“Oh, you are his Worship, are you?” said Kettle. 


216 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


“Why didn’t yon say so before? I don’t think it 
was quite straight of you, tintacks, but perhaps 
that’s your gentle Arab way. But I say, Whiskers, 
don’t you try being too foxy with me, or you’ll get 
hurt. I’m not the most patient man in the world 
with inferior nations. Come, now, where’s the mate?” 

Rad spread his hands helplessly. 

“See, here, it’s no use your trying that game. 
You know that I want Murray, my mate.” 

“Sawy plenty.” 

“Then hand him out, and let me get away back 
on board.” 

“No got,” said Rad el Moussa; “no can.” 

“Now look here. Mister,” said Captain Kettle, 
“I’ve paid you honestly for justice, and if I don’t 
have it. I’ll start in pulHng down your old town 
straight away. Give up the mate. Rad, and let me 
get back peacefully to my steamboat, or, by James ! 
I’ll let loose a wild earthquake here. If you want 
battle, murder, and sudden death, Mr. Rad el Mous- 
sa, just you play monkey tricks with me, and you’ll 
get ’em cheap. Kady, are you? Then, by James! 
you start in without further talk, and give me the 
justice that I’ve bought and paid for.” 

Though this tirade was in an alien tongue. Rad 
el Moussa caught the drift from Captain Kettle’s 
accompanying gesticulations, which supplied a run- 
ning translation as he went on. Rad saw that his 
visitor meant business, and signed that he would 
go out and fetch the imprisoned mate forthwith. 

“No, you don’t,” said Kettle promptly. “If your 
Worship once left here, I might have trouble in 
finding you again. I know how easy it is to hide 
in a warren like this town of yours. Send one of 
your hands with a message.” 


A MATTER OF JUSTICE 


217 


Now, to convey this sentence more clearly, Kettle 
had put his fingers on the Arab’s clothing, when 
out fell a bag of pearls, which came unfastened. The 
pearls rolled like peas about the floor, and the Arab, 
with gritting teeth, whipped out a knife. Promptly 
Kettle drew also, and covered him with a revolver. 

“See here,” he said, “I’m not a thief, though per- 
haps you think I pulled out that jewelry purse on 
purpose. It was an accident. Rad, so I’ll forgive 
your hastiness. But your Worship mustn’t pull out 
cutlery on me. I’ll not stand that from any man 
living. That’s right, put it up. Back goes the 
pistol into its pocket, and now we’re friends again. 
Pick up the pearls yourself, and then you’ll be cer- 
tain I haven’t grabbed any, and then send one of 
your men to fetch my mate and do as I want. 
You’re wasting a great deal of my time, Rad el 
Moussa, over a very simple job.” 

The Arab gathered the pearls again into the pouch 
and put it back to its place among his clothes. 
His face had grown savage and lowering, but it was 
clear that this little spitfire of a sailor, with his 
handy pistol, daunted him. Kettle, who read these 
signs, was not insensible to the compliment they 
implied, but at the same time he grew, if anjrthing, 
additionally cautious. He watched his man with a 
cat-like caution, and when Rad called a slave and 
gave him orders in fluent Arabic, he made him 
translate his commands forthwith. 

Rad el Moussa protested that he had ordered noth- 
ing more than the carrying out of his visitor’s 
wishes. But it seemed to Kettle that he protested 
just a trifle too vehemently, and his suspicions 
deepened. 

He tapped his pistol in its resting-place, and 


218 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


nodded his head meaningly. “You’ve friends in this 
town,” he said, “and I dare say you’ll have a good- 
ish bit of power in your small way. I’ve neither, 
and I don’t deny that if you bring up all your local 
army to interfere, I may have a toughish fight of 
it; but whatever happens to me in the long run, 
you may take it as straight from yours truly that 
you’ll go to your own funeral if trouble starts. So 
put that in your hookah and smoke it, tintacks, 
and give me the other tube.” 

Captain Kettle was used to the dilatory ways of 
the East, and he was prepared to wait, though 
never doubting that Murray would be surrendered 
to him in due time, and he would get his own way 
in the end. So he picked up one of the snaky tubes 
of the great pipe, and put the amber mouthpiece 
between his lips ; and there for an hour the pair of 
them squatted on the divan, with the hookah gur- 
gling and reeking between them. From time to time 
a slave-girl came and replenished the pipe with 
tobacco or fire as was required. But these were the 
only interruptions, and betweenwhiles they smoked 
on in massive silence. 

At the end of that hour, the man-slave who had 
been sent out with the message re-entered the room 
and delivered his tidings. Rad el Moussa in his 
turn passed it on. Murray was even then waiting 
in the justice chamber, so he said, at the further 
side of the house, and could be taken away at once. 
Kettle rose to his feet, and the Arab stood before 
him with bowed head and folded arms. 

Captain Kettle began to feel shame for having 
pressed this man too hardly. It seemed that he 
had intended to act honestly all along, and the 
suspiciousness of his behavior doubtless arose from 


A MATTER OF JUSTICE 


219 


some difficulty of custom or language. So the 
sailor took the Rad’s limp hand in his own and 
shook it cordially, and at the same time made a 
handsome apology for his own share of the mis- 
understanding. 

“Your Worship must excuse me,” he said, “but 
I’m always apt to be a bit suspicious about law- 
yers. What dealings I’ve had with them have nearly 
always turned out for me unfortunately. And now, 
if you don’t mind, we’ll go into your court-house, 
and you can hand me over my mate, and I’ll take 
him back to the ship. Enough time’s been wasted 
already by both of us.” 

The Arab, still bowed and submissive, signed 
toward the doorway, and Kettle marched briskly 
out along the narrow dark passage beyond, with 
Rad’s sandals shuffiing in escort close at his rear. 
The house seemed a large one, and rambling. Three 
times Rad’s respectful fingers on his visitor’s sleeve 
signed to him a change of route. The corridors, too, 
as is the custom in Arabia, where coolness is the 
first consideration, were dimly lit; and with the 
caution which had grown to be his second nature. 
Kettle instinctively kept all his senses on the alert 
for inconvenient surprises. He had no desire that 
Rad el Moussa should forget his submissiveness and 
stab him suddenly from behind, neither did he es- 
pecially wish to be noosed or knifed from round any 
of the dusky sudden corners. 

In fact he was as much on the qui vive as he ever 
had been in all his long, wild, adventurous life, and 
yet Rad el Moussa, who meant treachery all along, 
took him captive by the most vulgar of timeworn 
stratagems. Of a sudden the boarding of the floor 
sank beneath Kettle’s feet. He turned, and with a 


220 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


desperate effort tried to throw himself backward 
whence he had come. But the boarding behind 
reared up and hit him a violent blow on the hands 
and head, and he fell into a pit below. 

For an instant he saw through the gloom the 
faee of Rad el Moussa turned suddenly virulent, 
spitting at him in hate, and then the swing-floor 
slammed up into place again, and all view of any- 
thing but inky blackness was completely shut away. 

Now the fall, besides being disconeerting, was tol- 
erably deep; and but for the fact that the final 
blow from the flooring had shot him against the 
opposite side of the pit, and so broken his descent 
at the expense of his elbows and heels, he might 
very well have landed awkwardly, and broken a 
limb or his back in the process. But Captain Owen 
Kettle was not the man to waste time over useless 
lamentation or rubbing of bruises. He was on fire 
with fury at the way he had been tricked, and 
thirsting to get loose and be revenged. He had his 
pistol still in its proper poeket, and undamaged, and 
if the wily Rad had shown himself anywhere within 
range just then, it is a certain thing that he would 
have been shot dead to square the aceount. 

But Kettle was, as I have said, wedged in with 
darkness, and for the present, revenge must wait un- 
til he could see the man he wanted to shoot at. He 
scrambled to his feet, and fumbled in his poeket 
for a mateh. He found one, struck it on the sole of 
his trim white shoe, and reconnoitred quiekly. 

The plaee he was in was round and bottle shaped, 
measuring some ten feet aeross its floor, and taper- 
ing to a small square, where the trap gave it en- 
tranee above. It was a prison elearly, and there 
was evidenee that it had been recently used. It 


A MATTER OF JUSTICE 


221 


was clear also that the only official way of re- 
leasing a prisoner was to get him up by a ladder or 
rope through the small opening to which the sides 
converged overhead. Moreover, to all common 
seeming, the place was simply unbreakable, at least to 
any creature who had not either wings or the power 
of crawling up the under-side of a slant like a fly. 

But all these things flashed through Kettle’s 
brain in far less time than it takes to read them 
here. He had only two matches in his possession, 
and he wished to make all possible use of the 
first, so as to keep the second for emergencies ; and 
so he made his survey with the best of his intelli- 
gence and speed. 

The walls of this bottle-shaped prison were of 
bricks built without visible mortar, and held to- 
gether (it seemed probable) by the weight of earth 
pressing outside them; but just before the match 
burned his fingers and dropped to the floor, where 
it promptly expired, his eye fell upon an opening in 
the masonry. It was a mere slit, barely three inches 
wide, running vertically up and down for some six 
courses of the brick, and it was about chin-high 
above the ground. 

He marked this when the light went out, and 
promptly went to it and explored it with his arm. 
The slit widened at the other side, and there was 
evidently a chamber beyond. He clapped his hands 
against the lip of the slit, and set his feet against 
the wall, and pulled with the utmost of his strength. 
If once he could widen the opening suffieiently to 
clamber through, possibilities lay beyond. But 
from the weight of wall pressing down above, he 
could not budge a single brick by so much as a 
hairs-breadth, and so he had to give up this idea. 


222 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


and, stewing with rage, set about further recon- 
noitring. 

The darkness put his eyes out of action, but he 
had still left his hands and feet, and he went round 
with these, exploring carefully. 

Presently his search was rewarded. Opposite the 
opening he had discovered before, was another slit 
in the overhanging wall of this bottle-shaped prison, 
and this also he attacked in the hope of wrenching 
free some of the bricks. He strained and panted, 
till it seemed as though the tendons of his body must 
break, but the wall remained whole and the slit 
unpassable ; and then he gave way, almost childishly, 
to his passion of rage, and shouted insults and 
threats at Rad el Moussa in the vain hope that 
some one would hear and carry them. And some 
one did hear, though not the persons he expected. 

A voice, muffled and foggy, as though it came from 
a long distance, said in surprise: “Why, Captain, 
have they got you here, too?” 

Under cover of the darkness. Kettle blushed for 
shame at his outcry. “That you, Murray? I didn’t 
know you were here. How did you guess it was 
me?” 

The distant voice chuckled foggily. “I’ve heard 
you giving your blessing to the hands on board, 
sir, once or twice, and I recognized some of the 
words. What have they collared you for? You 
don’t photograph. Have you been messing round 
with some girl?” 

“Curse your impudence; just you remember your 
position and mine. I’ll have respect from my officers, 
even if I am in a bit of a fix.” 

“Beg pardon, sir. Sorry I forgot myself. It 
sha’n’t occur again.” 


A MATTER OF JUSTICE 


223 


''You’ll go to your room for three days when we 
get back on board.” 

"Ay, ay, sir.” 

"I decided that before I left the ship. I can’t 
have my officers staying away from duty without 
leave on any excuse. And if they have such low 
tastes as to bring themselves on the level of com- 
mon mop-headed portrait painters and photog- 
raphers, they must pay for it.” 

"Ay, ay, sir.” 

"What were you run in for?” 

"Oh, photographing.” 

"There you are, then! And did they bring you 
straight along here?” 

"Yes, sir. And lowered me in a bowline to this 
cellar.” 

"Ah,” said Kettle, "then you don’t want so much 
change out of them. They dropped me, and some 
one will have a heavy bill to square up for, over 
that. Do you know whose house this is?” 

"Haven’t a notion. After I’d been here an hour 
or so, some heathen sneaked round to a peep-hole 
in the wall and offered to take off a message to 
the ship, on payment. I hadn’t any money, so I 
had to give up my watch, and before I’d written 
half the letter he got interrupted and had to clear 
off with what there was. Did he bring off the mes- 
sage, sir?” 

"He did. And I came ashore at once. You re- 
member Rad el Moussa?” 

"The man that consigned all that parcel of figs 
for London?” 

"That man. I considered that as he’d been doing 
business with the steamer, he was the best person 
to make inquiries of ashore. So I came to him, and 


224 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


asked where I could find the Kadj to bail you out. 
He shuffled a bit, and after some talk he admitted 
he was the Kady, and took palm-oil from me in 
the usual way, and then I’ll not den^^ that we had 
a trifle of a disagreement. But he seemed to simmer 
down all right, said he’d send along for 3^ou, and 
after a bit of time said you’d come, and wouldn’t 
I walk through the house and see you myself. The 
crafty old fox had got his booby trap rigged in the 
mean time, and then I walked straight into it like 
the softest specimen of blame’ fool you can imagine.” 

“Rad el Moussa,” came the foggy comment. “By 
Jove! Captain, I believe we’re in an awkward 
place. He’s the biggest man in this town far and 
away, and about the biggest blackguard also from 
what I’ve heard. He’s a merchant in every line 
that comes handy, from slaves and palm fibre to 
horses and dates; he runs most of those pearling 
dhows that we saw sweltering about at the anchor- 
age; and he’s got a little army of his own with 
which he raids the other coast towns and the cara- 
vans up-country when he hears they’ve got any 
truck worth looting. I say, this is scaring. I’ve 
been taking the thing pretty easily up to now, 
thinking it would come all right in time. But if 
I’d known it was old Rad who had grabbed me, I 
tell you I should have sat sweating.” 

“It takes a lot more than a mere nigger, with his 
head in clouts, to scare me,” said Kettle truculent- 
ly, “and I don’t care tuppence what he may be by 
trade. He’s got a down on me at present. I’ll grant, 
but I’m going to give Mr. Rad el Moussa fits a little 
later on, and you may stand by and look on, if 
you aren’t frightened to be near him.” 

“I’m not a funk in the open,” grumbled Murray, 


A MATTER OF JUSTICE 


225 


‘^and you know it. You’ve seen me handle a crew. 
But I’m in a kind of cellar here, and can’t get out, 
and if anybody chooses they can drop bricks on me, 
and I can’t stop them. Have they been at you about 
those rifles, sir?” 

“What rifles? No, nobody’s said ^rifles’ to me 
ashore here.” 

“It seems we’ve got some cases of rifles on board 
for one of those little ports up the coast. I didn’t 
know it.” 

“Nor did I,” said Kettle, “and you can take it 
from me that we haven’t. Smuggling rifles ashore 
is a big offence here in the Persian Gulf, and I’m 
not going to put myself in the way of the law, if I 
know it.” 

“Well, I think you’re wrong, sir,” said the Mate. 
“I believe they’re in some cases that are down on 
the manifest as ‘machinery.’ I saw them stowed 
down No. 3 hold, and I remember one of the steve- 
dores in London joking about them when they were 
struck below.” 

“Supposing they were rifles, what than?” 

“Rad wants them. He says they’re consigned to 
some of his neighbors up coast, who’ll raid him as 
soon as they’re properly armed ; and he doesn’t like 
the idea. What raiding’s done, he likes to do him- 
self, and at the same time he much prefers good 
Brummagen rifles to the local ironmonger’s blunder- 
busses.” 

“Well,” said Kettle, “I’m waiting to hear what 
he thought you could do with the rifles supposing 
they were on board.” 

“Oh, he expected me to broach cargo and bring 
them here ashore to him. He’s a simple-minded 

savage.” 

15 


226 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


“By James!” said Kettle, “the man’s mad. What 
did he think I should be doing whilst one of my 
mates was scoffing cargo under my blessed nose?” 

“Ah, you see,” said the foggy voice, with sly 
malice, “he did not know you so well then, sir. 
That was before he persuaded you to come into 
his house to stay with him.” 

It is probable that Captain Kettle would have 
found occasion to make acid comment on this re- 
partee from his inferior officer, but at that moment 
another voice addressed him from the slit at the 
other side of his prison, and he turned sharply round. 
To his surprise this new person spoke in very toler- 
able English. 

“Capt’n, I want t’make contrack wid you.” 

“The deuce you do. And who might you be, 
anyway?” 

“I cullud gen’lem’n, sar. Born Zanzibar. Used 
to be fireman on P. and O. I want arsk you ” 

“Is this the Arabian Nights? How the mischief 
did you get here, anyway?” 

“Went on burst in Aden, sar. Th’ole Chief fired 
me out. Went Yemen. Caught for slave. Taken 
caravan. Brought here. But I’m very clever gen’le- 
m’n, sar, an’ soon bought myself free. Got slave 
of my own now. An’ three wives. Bought ’nother 
wife yesterday.” 

“You nasty beast!” said Kettle. 

“Sar, you insult me. Not bally Christian any 
longer. Hard-shell Mohammedan now, sar, and 
can marry as many wives as I can buy.” 

“I’m sure the Prophet’s welcome to you. Look 
here, my man. Pass down a rope’s end from 
aloft there, and let me get on deck, and I’ll give 
you a sovereign cash down, and a berth in my 


A MATTER OF JUSTICE 227 

steamboat’s stoke-hold if you want one. I’m not 
asking you to help me more. I guess I’m quite 
competent to find my way on board, and to wipe 
this house tolerably clean before it’s quit of me.” 

“Nothing of the kind, sar,” said the man behind 
the slit. “You insult me, sar. I very big gen’lem’n 
here, sar, an’ a sovereign’s no use to me. Besides, 
I partner to ole man Rad, an’ he say he want dem 
rifles you got on your ole tramp.” 

“Does he, indeed? Then you can tell him, Mr. 
Nigger runaway-drunken-fireman, that I’ll see you 
and him in somewhere a big sight hotter than Ara- 
bia before he gets them. I didn’t know they were 
rifles ; if I had known before this, I’d not have put 
them ashore ; but as things are now. I’ll land them 
into the hands of those that ordered them, and 
I hope they come round to this town of yours and 
give you fits. And see here, you talk more respect- 
ful about my steamboat, or you’ll get your shins 
kicked, daddy.” 

“An ole tramp,” said the man relishingly. “I 
served on P. an’ O., sar, an’ on P. an’ O. we don’t 
care ’sociate wid tramps’ sailors.” 

“You impudent black cannibal. You’ll be one of 
the animals those passenger lines carry along to 
eat the dead babies, to save the trouble of heaving 
them overboard.” 

The ex-fireman spluttered. But he did not continue 
the contest. He recognized that he had to deal 
with a master in the cheerful art of insult, and so 
he came back sulkily to business. 

“Will you give Rad dem rifles, you low white 
fellow?” 

“No, I won’t.” 

“Very well. Den we shall spiflicate you till you 


228 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


do,” said tlie man, and after that Kettle heard his 
slippers shuffling away. 

“I wonder what spifflcating is?” mused Kettle, 
but he did not remain cudgelling his brain over 
this for long. It occurred to him that if this negro 
could come and go so handily to the outside of this 
underground prison, there must be a stairway some- 
where near, and though he could not enlarge the 
slit to get at it that way, it might be possible to 
burrow a passage under the wall itself. For a tool, 
he had spied a broken crock lying on the floor, and 
with the idea once in his head, he was not long in 
putting it to practical effect. He squatted just 
underneath the slit, and began to quarry the earth 
at the foot of the wall with skill and determination. 

But if Kettle was prompt, his captors were by no 
means dilatory. Between Kettle’s prison and the 
mate’s was another of those bottle-shaped oubliettes, 
and in that there was presently a bustle of move- 
ment. There came the noises of some one lighting 
a fire, and coughing as he fanned Smouldering em- 
bers into a glow with his breath, and then more 
coughing and some curses as the fire-lighter took 
his departure. The door above clapped down into 
place, and then there was the sound of someone drag- 
ging over that and over the doors of the other two 
prisons what seemed to be carpets, or heavy rugs. 

There was something mysterious in this manoeuvre 
at first, but the secret of it was not kept for long. 
An acrid smell stole out into the air, which thick- 
ened every minute in intensity. Kettle seemed dimly 
to recognize it, but could not put a name to it defi- 
nitely. Besides, he was working with all his might 
at scraping away the earth from the foot of the 
wall, and had little leisure to think of other things. 


A MATTER OF JUSTICE 


229 


The heat was stifling, and the sweat dripped from 
him, but he toiled on with a savage glee at his 
success. The foundations had not been dug out; 
they were “floating” upon the earth surface; and 
the labor of undermining would, it appeared, be 
small. 

But Murray in the other prison had smelt the 
reek before, and was able to put a name to it 
promptly. “By Jove! Captain,” he shouted mistily 
from the distance, “they’re going to smoke us to 
death; that’s the game.” 

“Looks like trying it,” panted the little sailor, 
from his work. 

“That’s dried camel’s dung they’re burning. 
There’s no wood in Arabia here, and that’s their 
only fuel. When the smoke gets into your lungs, it 
just tears you all to bits. I say. Skipper, can’t you 
come to some agreement with Rad over those 
blessed rifles? It’s a beastly death to die, this.” 

“You aren’t dead — by a long chalk — yet. More’m 
I. I’d hate to be — smoke-dried like a ham — as bad 
as any Jew. But I don’t start in — to scoff the 
cargo — on my own ship — at any bally price.” 

There was a sound of distant coughing, and then 
the misty question: “What are you working at?” 

“Taking — exercise,” Kettle gasped, and after that, 
communication between the two was limited to 
incessant staccato coughs. 

More and more acrid grew the air as the burning 
camel’s dung saturated it further and further with 
smoke, and more and more frenzied grew Kettle’s 
efforts. Once he got up and stuffed his coat in the 
embrasure from which the smoke principally came. 
But that did little enough good. The wall was all 
chinks, and the bitter reek came in unchecked. He 


230 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


felt that the hacking coughs were gnawing away 
his strength, and just now the utmost output of his 
thews was needed. 

He had given up his original idea of mining a 
passage under the wall. Indeed, this would have 
been a labor of weeks with the poor broken crock 
which was his only tool, for the weight of the 
building above had turned the earth to something 
very near akin to the hardness of stone. But he 
had managed to scrape out a space underneath one 
brick, and found that it was loosened, and with 
trouble could be dislodged ; and so he was burrow- 
ing away the earth from beneath others, to drop 
more bricks down from their places, and so make a 
gangAvay through the solid wall itself. 

But simple though this may be in theory, 
it was tediously difficult work in practice. The 
bricks jammed even when they were undermined, 
and the wall was four bricks thick to its further 
side. Moreover, every alternate course was cross- 
pinned, and the workman was rapidly becoming 
asphyxiated by the terrible reek which came billow- 
ing in from the chamber beyond. 

Still, with aching chest, and bleeding fingers, and 
smarting eyes. Kettle worked doggedly on, and at 
last got a hole made completely through. What lay 
in the blackness beyond he did not know; either 
Rad el Moussa or the fireman might be waiting to 
give him a coup de grace the moment his head 
appeared; but he was ready to accept every risk. 
He felt that if he stayed in the smoke of that burn- 
ing camel’s dung any longer he would be strangled. 

The hole in the brickwork was scarcely bigger 
than a fox-earth, but he was a slightly built man, 
and with a hard struggle he managed to push his 


A MATTER OF JUSTICE 


231 


way through. No one opposed him. He found and 
scraped his only remaining match, and saw that he 
was in another bottle-shaped chamber similar to 
the one he had left; but in this there was a door- 
way. There was pungent smoke reek here also, and, 
though its slenderness came to him as a blessed 
relief after what he had been enduring, he lusted 
desperately for a taste of the pure air outside. 

The door gave to his touch, and he found a stair. 
He ran up this and stepped out into the corridor, 
where Rad had lured him to capture, and then, 
walking cautiously by the wall so as not to step 
into any more booby-traps, he came to the place 
where he calculated Murray would be jailed. A 
large thick carpet had been spread over the door so 
as to prevent any egress of the stinging smoke, or 
any ingress of air, and this he pulled away, and 
lifted the trap. 

There was no sound from below. “Great heavens,” 
he thought, “was the mate dead?” He hailed sharp- 
ly, and a husky voice answered. Seeing nothing 
else at hand that would serve, he lowered an end of the 
carpet, keeping a grip on the other, and presently 
Murray got a hold and clambered up beside him. 

In a dozen whispered words Kettle told his plans, 
and they were on the point of starting off to carry 
them out, when the slop-slop of slippers made itself 
heard advancing down the corridors. Promptly the 
pair of them sank into the shadows, and presentlj^ 
the ex-fireman came up whistling cheerfully an air 
from some English music-hall. He did not see them 
till they were almost within hand-grips, and then 
the tune froze upon his lips in a manner that was 
ludicrous. 

But neither Kettle nor his mate had any eye for 


232 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


the humors of the situation just then. Murray 
plueked the man’s legs artistieally from beneath him, 
and Kettle gripped his hands and throat. He thrust 
his savage little face close dowm to the black man’s. 
“Now,” he said, “where’s Rad? Tell me truly, or 
I’ll make you into dog’s meat. And speak quietly. 
If you make a row. I’ll gouge your eyes out.” 

“Rad, he in divan,” the fellow stuttered in a 
scared whisper. “Sort o’ front shop you savvy, 
sar. Don’ kill me.” 

“I can recommend my late state-room,” said 
Murray. 

“Just the ticket,” said Kettle. So into the oubli- 
ette they toppled him, clapping down the door in 
its place above. “There you may sta^q you black 
beast,” said his judge, “to stew in the smoke you 
raised yourself. If any of your numerous wives are 
sufficiently interested to get you out, they may do 
so. If not, you pig, you may stay and cure into 
bacon. I’m sure I sha’n’t miss you. Come along, 
Mr. Mate.” 

They fell upon Rad el Moussa placidly resting 
among the cushions of the divan, with the stem 
of the water-pipe between his teeth, and his mind 
probably figuring out plans of campaign in which 
the captured rifles would do astonishing work. 

Kettle had no revolver in open view, but Rad had 
alread3^ learned how handily that instrument could 
be produced on occasion, and had the wit to make 
no show of resistance. The sailor went up to him, 
delicately extracted the poignard from his sash, and 
broke the blade beneath his feet. Then he said to 
him, “Stand there,” pointing to the middle of the 
floor, and seated himself on the divan in the attitude 
of a judge. 


A MATTER OF JUSTICE 


233 


“Now, Mr. Rad el Motissa, I advise you to under- 
stand what’s going to be said to you now, so 
that it’ll be a lesson to you in the future. 

“I eame to you, not very long ago, asking for 
your eard to the Kady. I told you my business 
was about the mate here, and you said you were 
Kady yourself. Whether you are or not I don’t 
know, and I don’t vastly eare, but anyway, I paid 
for justice in hard money, and you said you’d give 
up the mate. You didn’t do that. You played a 
trick on me, which I’ll own up I was a fool to get 
caught by; and I make no doubt that you’ve been 
laughing at me behind my back with that nasty 
nigger partner of yours. 

“Well, prisoner at the bar, let alone I’m a bloom- 
ing Englishman — and Englishmen aren’t sent into 
this world to be laughed at by any foreigners — I’m 
myself as well, and let me tell you I don’t stand 
either being swindled out of justice when I’ve paid 
for it, or being played tricks on afterward. So you 
are hereby sentenced to the fine of one bag of pearls, 
to be paid on the spot, and furthermore to be incar- 
cerated in one of those smoke boxes down the alley- 
way yonder till you can find your own way out. 
Now, prisoner, don’t move during the next operation, 
or I’ll shoot you. Mr. Mate, you’ll find a small bag 
inside the top part of his nightgown, on the left- 
hand side. Got ’em?” 

“Here they are, sir,” said Murray. 

“Thanks,” said Kettle, and put the bag in his 
pocket. “And now, if you please, Mr. Mate, we’ll 
just put His Whiskers into that cellar with the 
nigger, and leave him there to get smoked into a 
better and, we’ll hope, a more penitent frame of 
mind.” 


234 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


They completed this pious act to their entire sat- 
isfaction, and left the house without further inter- 
ruption. The townspeople were just beginning to 
move about again after the violence of the midday 
heat, but except for curious stares, they passed 
through the narrow streets between the whitewashed 
houses quite without interruption. And in due time 
they came to the beach, and hired a shore boat, 
which took them off to the steamer. 

But here Kettle was not inclined to linger unnec- 
essarily. He saw Grain, the second mate, and asked 
him how much more cargo there was to come off. 

“The last lighter load is alongside this minute, 
sir.” 

“Then hustle it on deck as quick as you can, and 
then call the carpenter, and go forward and heave 
up.” 

Grain looked meaningly at Murray. “Am I to 
take the fore deck, sir.” 

“Yes, I appoint you acting mate for three days; 
and Mr. Murray goes to his room for that time for 
getting into trouble ashore. Now put some hurry 
into things, Mr. Grain; I don’t want to stay here 
longer than’s needful.” 

Grain went forward about his business, but Mur- 
ray, who looked somewhat disconsolate, Kettle 
beckoned into the chart-house. He pulled out the 
pearl bag, and emptied its contents on to the chart 
table. “Now, look here, my lad,” said he, “I have 
to send you to your room because I said I would, 
and because that’s discipline ; but you can pocket a 
thimblefull of these seed pearls just to patch up 
your wounded feelings, as your share of old Rad el 
Moussa’s fine. They are only seed pearls, as I say, 
and aren’t worth much. We were due to have more 


A MATTER OF JUSTICE 


235 


as a sheer matter of justice, but it wasn’t to be 
got. So we must make the best of what there is. 
You’ll bag £20 out of your lot if you sell them in 
the right place ashore. I reckoned my damages at 
£500, and I guess I’ve got here about £200.” 

“Thank you, sir,” said Murray. “But it’s rather 
hard being sent to my room for a thing I could no 
more help than you could.” 

“Discipline, my lad. This will probably teach you 
to leave photographing to your inferiors in the fu- 
ture. There’s no persuading me that it isn’t that 
photograph box that’s at the bottom of the whole 
mischief. Hullo, there’s the windlass going already. 
I’ll just lock up these pearls in the drawer, and 
then I must go on the bridge. Evy and about going 
to your room, my lad: as long as I don’t see you 
for three days you can do much as you like. I 
don’t want to be too hard. But as I said to old 
Rad el Moussa, justice is justice, and discipline’s 
got to be kept.” 

“And what about the rifles, sir?” 

Captain Kettle winked pleasantly. “I don’t know 
that they are rifles. You see the cases are down on 
the manifest as ‘machinery,’ and I’m going to put 
them ashore as such; but I don’t mind owning to 
you, Mr. Mate, that I hope old Rad finds out he was 
right in his information. I suppose his neighbors 
will let him know within the next week or so whether 
they are rifles really, or whether they aren’t.” 


CHAPTER X 


DAGO DIVERS 

“I’m real glad to be able to call you ‘Captain,’ 
my lad,’’ said Kettle, and Murray, in delight at his 
new promotion, wrung his old commander’s hand 
again. “You’ve slaved hard enough as mate,’’ Ket- 
tle went on, “though that’s only what a man’s got 
to do at sea nowadays if he wants promotion, and 
it’ll probably amuse you to see Grain, who steps 
into your shoes, doing the work of four deck hands 
and an extra boatswain as well as his own. Grain 
was inclined to stoutness — he’ll soon be thin again. 
As for you, you’ve sweated and slaved so much that 
your clothes hang on like you a slop-chest shirt on 
a stanchion just now. But you’ll fill ’em out nicel^^ 
by the time you get back to England again. 
Shouldn’t wonder but what you turn out to be a 
regular fat man one of these days, my lad.’’ 

Murray stood back and looked humorously over’ 
Captain Kettle. The pair of them liked one another 
well, but the ties of discipline had kept them icily 
apart up to now. Murray’s promotion put them on 
equal footing of grade now, and they were inclined 
to make the most of it for the short time they had 
together. “Running the Parakeet doesn’t seem to 
have made you very plump. Skipper.” 

“Constitutional, I guess,” said Kettle. “I don’t 
believe the food’s grown that’d make me carry flesh. 
I’m one of those men that was sent into the world 


DAGO DIVERS 


237 


with a whole shipload of bad luck to work through 
before I came across any of the soft things.” 

“If you ask me,” said Murray, cheerfully, “you 
haven’t much to grumble at now. Here am I kick- 
ing you out of the command of the Parakeet^ to be 
sure. And why? Because whilst you’ve been her 
old man you’ve made her pay about half what she 
originally cost per annum, and as out of that the 
firm’s saved enough to build a new and bigger ship, 
they’re naturally going to give her to you to scare 
up more fat dividends. Lord,” said Murray, hitting 
his knee, “the chaps on board here will be calling 
me the ‘old man’ behind my back now.” 

“You’ll get used to hearing the title,” said Kettle 
grimly, “before you make your pile. You’ll get 
married, I suppose, on the strength of the pro- 
motion? I saw a girl’s photo nailed up in your 
room.” 

The new captain nodded. “Got engaged when 
I passed for my master’s ticket. Arranged to be 
hitched so soon as I found a ship.” 

Kettle sighed drearily. “I was that way, my lad. 
I was married, and a kid had come before I was 
thirty. Not that I ever regretted it; by James! no. 
But for long enough I was never able to provide for 
the missus in the way I’d like, and I can tell you 
it was terrible gall to me to know that our set at 
the chapel looked down on her because she could 
only keep a poor home. Yes, my lad, you’ll have a 
lot to go through.” 

“Well,” said JMurray, “I’ve got this promotion, 
and I’m not going to worry about dismals. I sup- 
pose you go straight home by mail from Aden here?” 

“Hullo, haven’t they told you?” 

“My letter was only the dry, formal announce- 


238 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


merit that you were promoted to the new ship, and 
I was to take over the Parakeet.'^ 

“They don’t waste their typewriter in the office. 
I suppose they thought I’d hand on my letter if I 
saw fit. Read through that,” said Kettle, and 
handed across his news. This is how it ran: — 

BIRD, BIRD & CO., 

Ship and Insurance Brokers, 

Agents to the Bird 
Transport Company. 

Managers of the 
Bird Steam Company. 21st March, 1896. 

Swan, 375 tons. Captain R. Evans. 

Sparrow, 461 tons. Captain James Evans, 
s.s. Starling, 880 tons. Captain Enoch Shaw, 
s.s. Parakeet, 2,100 tons. Captain Murray, 
s.s. Building, 3,500 tons. Captain O. Kettle. 

s.s. Building, 3,500 tons. Captain 

s.s. Building, 4,000 tons. Captain 

“The superb vessels of the Bird Line!” 

Dear Captain Kettle , — 

Having noted from your cables and reports you 
are making a good thing for us out of tramping 
the “Parakeet,” we have pleasure in transferring 
you to our new boat, which is now building on the 
Clyde. She will be 3,500 tons, and we may take 
out passenger certificate, she being constructed on 
that specification. Your pay will be £21 {twenty- 
one pound) per month, with 2^2 per cent, commis- 
sion as before. But for the present, till this new 
boat is finished, we want you to give over com- 
mand of the “Parakeet” to Murray, and take on a 
new job. Our Mr. Alexander Bird has recently bought 
the wreck of the s.s. “Grecfaa,” and we are sending 
out a steamer with divers and full equipment to get 
the salvage. We wish you to go on board this Fes- 



759, Euston Street, 
LIVERPOOL, 


DAGO DIVERS 


239 


sel to watch over our interests. We give you full 
controly and have notified Captain Tazzuchiy at 
present in command y to this effect. 

Yours truly y 

p.p. Birdy Bird and Co. 

To Captain O. KettlCy {Isaac Bird.) 

s.s. Parakeet y'^ Bird LinCy Aden. 

“I see they have clapped me down on the bill 
heading for the Parakeet already,” said Murray, 
“and you’re shifted along in print for the new ship. 
Birds are getting on. But I’ve big doubts about 
three new boats all at one bite. One they might 
manage on a mortgage. But three? I don’t think 
it. Old Ikey’s too cautious.” 

“Messrs. Bird are your owners and mine,” said 
Kettle significantly. 

“Oh!” said the newly-made captain, “I’m not one 
of your old-fashioned sort that thinks an owner a 
little tin god.” 

“My view is,” said Kettle, “that your owner pays 
you, and so is entitled to your respect so long as 
he is your owner. Besides that, whilst you are 
drawing pay, you’re expected to carry out orders, 
whatever they may be, without question. But I 
don’t think we’ll talk any more about this, my 
lad. You’re one of the newer school, I know, and 
you’ve got such a big notion of your own rights 
that we’re not likely to agree. Besides, you’ve got 
to check my accounts and see I’ve left it all for you 
ship-shape, and I’ve to pull my bits of things 
together into a portmanteau. See you again before 
I go away, and we’ll have a drop of whisky to- 
gether to wish the Parakeefs new ‘old man’ a pile 
of luck.” 


240 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


At the edge of the harbor, Aden baked under the 
sun, but Kettle was not the man to filch his em- 
ployer’s time for unnecessary strolls ashore. The 
salvage steamer rolled at her anchor at the oppo- 
site side of the harbor, and Kettle and two port- 
manteaux were transhipped direct in one of the 
Parakeets boats. 

He was received on board by an affable Italian, 
who introduced himself as Captain Tazzuchi. The 
man spoke perfect English, and was hospitality 
personified. The little salvage steamer was barely 
300 tons burden, and her accommodation was limited, 
but Tazzuchi put the best room in the ship at his 
guest’s disposal, and said that anything that could 
act for his comfort should be done forthwith. 

“Y’know, Captain,” said Tazzuclii, “this is what 
you call a ‘Dago’ ship, and we serve out country 
wine as a regular ration. But I thought perhaps 
you’d like your own home ways best, and so I’ve 
ordered the ship’s chandler ashore to send off a case 
of Scotch, and another of Chicago beef. Oh yes, and 
I sent also for some London pickles. I know how 
you English like your pickles.” 

In fact, all that a man could do in the way of 
outward attention Tazzuchi did, but somehow or 
other Captain Kettle got a suspicion of him from 
the very first moment of their meeting. Perhaps it 
was to some extent because the British mariner has 
always an instinctive and special distrust for the 
Latin nations ; perhaps it was because the civility 
was a little unexpected and over-effusive. Putting 
himself in the Italian’s place. Kettle certainly would 
not have gone out of his way to be pleasant to a 
foreigner who was sent practically to supersede him 
in a command. 


DAGO DIVERS 


241 


But perhaps a second letter which he had received, 
giving him a more intimate list of the duties re- 
quired, had something to do with this hostile feeling. 
It was from the same hand which had written the 
firm’s formal letter, but it was couched in quite a 
different vein. Isaac Bird was evidently scared for 
his very commercial existence, and he thrust out his 
arms to Kettle on paper as his only savior. It 
seemed that Alexander Bird, the younger brother, 
had been running a little wild of late. 

The wreck of the Grecian had been put up for 
auction; Alexander strolled into the room by acci- 
dent, and bought at an exorbitant figure. He 
came and announced his purchase to Isaac, declaring 
it as an instance of his fine business instincts. Isaac 
set it down to whisky, and recriminations followed. 
Alexander in a huff said he would go out and over- 
look the salvage operations in person. Isaac opined 
that the firm might scrape to windward of bank- 
ruptcy by that means, and advised Alexander to 
take remarkable pains about keeping sober. But 
forthwith Alexander, still in his cups, *‘and at a 
music hall, too, a place he knows ‘Isaac’s’ religious 
connection holds in profound horror,” gets to brawl- 
ing, and is next discovered in hospital with a broken 
thigh. 

“I have found Alexander's department of the busi- 
ness very tangled y" wrote Isaac, ^*when I began to 
go into his books the hrst day he was laid up, and 
the thought of this new eomplieation drove me near 
crazy. Salvage is out of our line; Alexander should 
never have touched it. But there it is; money paid, 
and I've had to borrow; and engaging that Italian 
lirm for the job was the best thing I could manage. 
What English hrms wanted was out of all reason. 

16 


242 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


I dotiH wonder at Lloyds selling wreeks for any- 
thing they will feteh. A pittanee in eash is better 
than getting into the hands of these sharks ’’(sharks 
was heavily underscored). ^^And what guarantee 
have I that the hrm will poeket even that pittance? 
How do I know that I shall see even the money 
outpaid again y let alone reasonable interest? None?^ 
There were several words erased here, and the writer 
went on with what was evidently considered a drama- 
tic finish. ‘ ‘ Hut stay, ’ I say to myself, ^you have Ket- 
tle. He is down in the Red Sea now, doing well. 
You had all along intended to promote him. Do it 
now, and set him to overlook this Italian salvage 
firm whilst the new boat is building. He is the one 
to see that Isaac Bird^s foot doth not fall, for Cap- 
tain O. Kettle is a godly man also.^’^ 

The letter was shut off conventionally enough with 
the statement that the writer was Captain Kettle’s 
trul^^, and ended in a post-scriptum tag to the effect 
that the envoy should still draw his two and a-half 
per cent, on net results. The actual figures had 
evidently not been conceded without a mental 
wrench, as the erasion beneath them showed, but 
there they stood in definite ink, and Kettle was not 
inclined to cavil at the process which deduced them. 

However, although in his recent prosperity Kettle 
had assumed a hatred for risks, and bred a strong 
dislike for all those commercial adventures which 
lay beyond the ordinary rut and routine of trade, 
he took up his duties on the salvage steamer with a 
stout heart and cheerful estimate for the future. 
Ahead of him he had pleasant dreams of the big 
boat that was “building,” and the increased month- 
ly pay in store ; and for the present, well, here was 
an owner’s command, and of course that settled liim 


DAGO DIVERS 


243 


firmly in the berth. He had been too long an obe- 
dient slave to shipovrners of every grade to have the 
least fancy for disputing the imperial will of Bird, 
Bird and Co. 

Murray tooted his cheerful farewells on the Para- 
keet's siren as the little Italian salvage boat 
steamed out of the baking airs of Aden harbor, and 
ensigns were dipped with due formality. Tazzuchi 
was all hospitality. He invited Kettle to damage 
his palate with a black Italian “Virginia” cigar 
with a straw up the middle; he uncorked a bottle 
of the Scotch whisky with his own hand, splashed 
away the first wineglassful to get rid of the fusel 
oil, and put it ready for reference when his guest 
should feel athirst; and he produced a couple of 
American pirated editions of English novels to give 
even intellect its dainty feast. 

Kettle accepted it all with a dry civility. He had 
every expectation of upsetting this man’s plans of 
robbery later on, and very possibly of coming into 
personal contact with him. But the ties of bread 
and salt did not disturb him. Though it was Tazzu- 
chi who presented the Virginias and the novels, he 
took it for granted that Messrs. Bird, Bird and Co. 
had paid for them, and he was not averse to accept- 
ing a little luxury from the firm. The economical 
Isaac had cut down the commissariat on the Para- 
keet till a man had to be half-starved before he 
could stomach a meal. 

The salvage steamer had a South of Europe leis- 
ureliness in her movements. Her utmost pace was 
nine knots, but, as eight was more economical for 
coal consumption, it was at that speed she moved. 
The wreck of the Greeian was out of the usual 
steam lane. She had, it appeared, got off her course 


244 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


in a fog, had run foul of a half-ebb reef which holed 
her in two compartments, and then been steered for 
the shore in the wild attempt to beach her before 
she sank. She had ceased floating, however, with 
some suddenness, and when the critical moment 
came not all of her people managed to scrape oft' 
with their lives in the boats. Those that stayed 
behind were incontinently drowned ; those that got 
away found themselves in a gale (to which the fog 
gave place), and had so much trouble to keep afloat 
that they had no time left to make accurate deter- 
mination of where their vessel sank ; and when they 
were picked up could only give her whereabouts 
vaguely. However, they stated that the Grecian's 
mast-trucks remained above the water surface, and 
by these she could be found; and this fact was 
brought out strongly by the auctioneer who sold 
the wreck, and had due influence on the enterprising 
Alexander. “Masts!” said Alexander, who daily 
saw them bristling from a dock, “don’t tell me you 
can miss masts anywhere.” 

But, as it chanced, it was only b3^ a fluke that the 
salvage steamer stumbled across the wreck at all. 
She wandered for several days among an intensely 
dangerous archipelago, and many times over had 
narrow escapes from piling up her bones on one or 
other of those reefs with which the Red Sea in that 
quarter abounds. Tazzuchi navigated her in an 
ecstasy of nervousness, and Kettle (who regarded 
himself as a passenger for the time being) kept a 
private store of food and water-bottles handy, and 
saw that one of the quarter-boats was ready for 
hurried lowering. But nowhere did they see those 
mast-trucks. They did not sight so much as a scrap 
of floating wreckage. 


DAGO DIVERS 


245 


There seemed, however, a good many dhow coast- 
ers dodging about in and among the reefs, and 
from these Kettle presently drew a deduction. 

“Look here,” he said to Tazzuchi one morning, 
“what price those gentry ashore having found the 
wreck already? I guess they aren’t out here taking 
week-end trippers for sixpenny yachting cruises.” 

“No,” said Tazzuchi, “and they aren’t fishing; 
you can see that.” 

“Well, I give you the tip for what it’s worth,” 
said Kettle; and that afternoon the steamer was 
run up alongside a dhow, which tried desperately 
to escape. Her captain was dragged on board, and 
at that juncture Captain Kettle took upon himself 
to go below. He knew what would probably take 
place, and, though he disapproved of such methods 
strongly, he felt he could not interfere. He was in 
Bird, Bird and Co.’s employ, and what was being 
done would forward the firm’s interest. 

But presently came a noise of bellowing from the 
deck above, and then that was followed by shrill 
screams as the upper gamut of agony was reached. 
Kettle was prepared for rough handling, but at 
information gained by absolute torture he drew the 
line. It was clear that these cruel beggars of Ital- 
ians were going too far. 

“By James!” he muttered to himself, “owners or 
no owners, I can’t stand this,” and started hurriedly 
to go back to the deck. But before he reached the 
head of the companion-way the cries of pain ceased, 
and so he stood where he was on the stair, and 
waited. The engines rumbled, and the steamer once 
more gathered way. A clamor of barbaric voices 
reached him, which gradually died into quietude. 
It was clear they were leaving the dhow behind. 


246 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


Captain Kettle drew a long breath. They would 
stick at little, these Dagos, in getting the salvage of 
the Grecian, and it seemed preposterous to suppose 
that once they gripped the specie in their own 
fingers they would ever give it up for the paltry 
pay which had been offered by Bird, Bird and Co. 
Their own poverty was aching. He saw it whenever 
he looked about the patched little steamer. He felt 
it whenever he sat down to one of their painfully 
frugal meals. 

Still, though no man knew more bitterly than 
Kettle himself from past experience what poverty 
meant, and how it cut, the poverty of these Italians 
was no concern of his just then. They were paid 
servants of the owners exactly as he was, and it 
was his duty to see that they earned their hire. He 
took it that he was one against the whole ship’s 
company, but the odds did not daunt him. On the 
contrary, something of his old fighting spirit, which 
had been of late hustled into the background by 
snug commercial prosperity, came back to him. 
And besides, he had always at his call that exquisite 
pride of race which has so many times given victory 
to the Anglo-Saxon over the Latin, when all reason- 
able balances should have made it go the other 
way. 

By a sort of instinct he buttoned up his trim 
white drill coat, and stepped out on deck. There 
would be no scuffle yet awhile. With the specie that 
would make the temptation still snugly stored on 
the sea-floor, the dirty, untidy Italians were still 
all affability. Indeed, as soon as he appeared, 
Tazzuchi himself stepped down off the upper bridge 
to give him the news. 

“How do you think those crafty imps have man- 


DAGO DIVERS 


247 


aged it?” he cried, with a gesture. “Why they dived 
down and cut off her masts below water level. The 
funnel was out of sight already. They just thought 
they were going to have the skimming of that 
wreck themselves. No wonder we couldn’t pick her 
up.” 

“Cute beggars,” said Kettle. 

“I’ve bagged a pilot. If he takes us there straight, 
he gets backsheesh. If he doesn’t, he eats more 
stick. I think,” said Captain Tazzuchi, with a wide 
smile, “that he’ll take us there the quickest road.” 

“Shouldn’t wonder,” said Kettle. “But don’t be 
surprised if his friends come round and make things 
ugly. When those Red Sea niggers get their fingers 
in a wreck, they think’s it’s their wreck.” 

“Let them come. We were ready for this sort of 
entertainment when we sailed, and there are plenty 
of rifles and cartridges in the cabin. If there is any 
trouble, we shall shoot ; and if we begin that game, 
we shall just imagine they are Abyssinians, and 
shoot to kill. The Italians have a big bill to pay 
with those jokers, anyway.” He tapped Kettle on 
the shoulder. “And look at those two brass signal 
guns. Captain. If we break up some firebars for 
shot, they’ll smash the side of any dhow in the Red 
Sea.” 

Under the black captive’s guidance, the salvage 
steamer soon put a term to her search. For two 
more hours she threaded her way among surf 
which broke over unseen reefs, and swung round 
the capes of a rocky archipelago, and then the pilot 
gave his word and the engines were stopped and a 
rusty cable roared out till an anchor got its hold 
of the ground. A boat was lowered with air-pump 
already stepped amidships, and the boat’s crew 


248 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


with eager hands assisted the diver to make his 
toilet. 

“You chaps seem keen enough,” said Kettle, as 
he watched the trail of air bubbles which showed 
the man’s progress on the sea floor below. 

“They have each got a stake in the venture.” 

“I bet they have,” was Kettle’s grim comment to 
himself. 

The kidnapped skipper of the dhow, it seemed, 
had done his pilotage with a fine accuracy. The 
salvage steamer had been anchored in a good posi- 
tion, and between them two divers in two boats 
found the Grecian's wreck in half an hour. Indeed, 
they had made their first descent practically within 
hand-touch of her, but the water was full of a 
milky clay and very opaque, and sight below the 
surface was consequently limited. 

They came up to the air for a quarter of an 
hour’s spell and made their announcement, and 
then the copper helmets were clapped into place 
again, and once more like a pair of uncouth sea 
monsters they slowly and clumsil^^ faded away into 
the depths. A gabble of excited Italian kept pace 
to the turning of the air-pumps, and of that lan- 
guage Kettle knew barely a score of words. Practi- 
cally these people might have weaved any kind of 
plot noisily and under his very nose without his 
being any the wiser, and this possibility did little 
to quell his suspicions. 

But still Tazzuchi was all outward frankness. 
“It’s as well we brought out this little steamboat 
just to skim the wreck and survey her,” he said. 
“If they’d waited to fit out a big salvage expedition, 
to raise her straight off, I reckon there wouldn’t 
have been much left but iron plates and coal 


DAGO DIVERS 


249 


bunkers. These Red Sea niggers are pretty useful 
at looting, once they start. The beggars can dive 
pretty nearly as well and as long in their naked 
skins as their betters can in a proper diving suit.” 

Each time the divers came up from the opaque 
white water they brought more reports. Binnacles, 
whistle, wheels, and all movable deck fittings were 
gone already. The chart-house had been looted 
down to the bare boards. Hatches were off, both 
forward and aft, and already the cargo had begun 
to diminish. The black men of the district had been 
making good use of their time; and as the proba- 
bilities were that they would return in force to 
glean from this store which they considered legall3^ 
theirs, it was advisable to collect as much as pos- 
sible into the salvage steamer before any disturb- 
ances began. 

News came from the cool mysterious water to the 
baking region of air above, almost at the second 
hour of the search, that the Grecian could never 
be refloated. In addition to the holes already made 
in two of her compartments, she had settled on a 
sharp jag of rock, which had pierced her in a third 
place aft. But at the same time this one piece of 
rock was the only solid spot in the neighborhood. 
All the rest of the sea floor was paved with pulpy 
white clay, and in this the unfortunate wreck had 
settled till already it was flush with her lower 
decks. There were evidences, too, that the ooze 
was creeping higher every day, so that all that 
remained was to strip her as quickly as might be 
before she was swallowed up for always. 

Tazzuchi asked Captain Kettle for his opinion 
that night in the chart-house. ‘T’m to be guided 
by you, of course,” he said, “but my idea is that 


250 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


we should go for the speeie first thing, and let 
everything slide till that’s snugly on board here. 
Birds gave £5,400 for the wreck, and there’s £8,000 
in cash down there in a room they built specially 
for it over the shaft-tunnel. If we can grab that, it 
will pay our expenses and commission and all the 
other actual outlay, and Birds will be out of the 
wood. Afterward, if we can weigh any more of 
the cargo, well, that will be all clear profit.” 

“Yes,” thought Kettle, “you want those gold 
boxes in your hands, you blessed Dago, and then 
you’ll begin to play your monkey tricks. I wonder 
if you think you’re going to jam a knife into me by 
way of making things snug and safe?” But aloud 
he expressed agreement to Captain Tazzuchi’s plan. 

He felt that this was diplomacy, and though the dip- 
lomatic art was new and strange to him, he told 
himself that it was the correct weapon to use under 
the circumstances. He had risen out of his old 
grade of hole-and-corner shipmaster, where it had 
been his province to carry things through by rough 
blows and violent words. He was a Captain in a 
regular line — the Bird line — now, and (with a trifle 
of a sigh) he remembered that wild fights and 
scrimmages were beneath the dignity of his posi- 
tion. 

Accordingly, as soon as dawn gave a waking 
light, the boats were put out again, and the divers 
were given orders to let the further surve 3 ’' of the vessel 
rest, and put all their efforts into getting the specie 
boxes on to the end of the salvage steamer’s winch 
chain. They were quickly helmed and sent below, 
and presently an increased cloudiness in the water 
told him that they were actively at work. A lot of 
dhows were showing here and there amongst the 


DAGO DIVERS 


251 


reefs, obviously watching them, and Tazzuchi was 
beginning to get nervous. 

“We’re in for trouble, I’m afraid, he said to Ket- 
tle. “That rock on which she’s settled astern has 
made a hole in her you could drive a cart through. 

I suppose it was a tight-fitting hole at first, but as 
she settled more and moved about, it’s got en- 
larged same as the hole in a tin of beef does when 
you begin to waggle it with the can-opener.” 

“Well?” 

“Didn’t you hear the report they’ve just sung off 
from the boats? Oh, I forgot, you don’t under- 
stand Italian. Well, the news is that the rock’s 
acted as a can-opener to such fine effect that it’s 
split a hole in the bottom of the strong room, and 
those gold boxes have toppled through.” 

“And buried themselves in the slime?” 

“That’s it. And Lord knows how many feet 
they’ve sunk. It’s dreadful stuff to dig amongst — 
slides in on you as soon as you start to dig, and 
levels up. They’ll have to brattice as they work. 
It’ll be a big job.” 

All that day Kettle watched the sea with an 
anxious eye. In the two boats men ground at the 
air-pumps under the aching sunlight. From below 
the mud came up in white billows, which danced, 
and swirled, and eddied as the air bubbles from the 
divers’ exhaust valves stirred it. And out beyond, 
in and among the reefs, and along the distant shore, 
which swung and shimmered in the heat haze, 
hungry dhows prowled like carrion birds tempo- 
rarily driven away from a prey. 

Tazzuchi and the chief engineer busied themselves 
in binding together fragments of fire-bars with iron 
wire. The Italian shipmaster had a great notion of 


252 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


the damage his signal-guns could do against a 
dhow, if they were provided with orthodox solid 
shot. As a point of fact they never came into 
action. As soon as the second night came down, 
and the darkness became fairly fixed in hue, there 
began to crackle out of the distance a desultory 
rifle fire from every quarter of the compass. It was 
not very heavy — at the outside there were not a 
score of weapons firing, and it could not be called 
accurate since not one bullet in twenty so much as 
hit the steamer; but it was annoying for all that, 
and as the marksmen and their vessels were com- 
pletely swallowed up by the blackness of the night, 
it was impossible to repay their compliments in 
kind. 

Morning showed the damage of one port window 
smashed, two panes gone from the engine-room 
skylight, and the air-pump in one of the boats 
alongside with a plunger neatly cut into two pieces. 
But there was a spare air-pump in store, and after 
dawn came, work went on as usual. The dhows 
came no nearer, neither did they go much further 
away. They pottered about just beyond rifle shot, 
and their numbers were slightly increased . T azzuchi , 
full of enthusiasm for his artillery, tried a carefully 
aimed shot at one of the largest. But the explosion 
was quite outdone in noise by the cackle of laughter 
which followed it. So slow was the flight of the 
missile that the eye could trace it. So short was 
its journey, and so curved its trajectory, that it 
came very near to hitting one of the boats of the 
divers, and the men working there cried out in de- 
rision that they would catch cold by being wetted 
by the spray. 

‘Well,” thought Kettle, “these are pretty cool 


DAGO DIVERS 


253 


hands for Dagos, anyway. I’m going to have a 
fine tough time of it when my part of the seuffle 
comes.” 

That night he had a still further taste of their 
quality. So soon as darkness fell, the dhows closed 
in again and recommenced their sniping. They 
kept under weigh, and so it did little enough good 
to aim back at the flashes. But Tazzuchi, with half 
a dozen keen spirits, got down into one of the 
boats with their rifles and knives, and a drum of 
paraffin, and pulled away silently into the blackness. 

There was silence for quite half an hour, and the 
suspense on the anchored steamer was vivid enough 
to have shaken trained men. Yet these Italian 
artificers and merchant seamen seemed to take it as 
coolly as though such sorties were an everyday 
occurrence. But at the end of that time there was 
a splutter of shots, a few faint squeals, and then a 
bonfire lighted up away in the darkness. 

The blaze grew rapidly, and showed in its heart 
the outline of a dhow with human figures on it. 
With promptness every man on the steamer emp- 
tied his rifle at the mark, and continued the fusillade 
till the dhow was deserted. They had all done 
their spell of military service, and they chose to 
decide that these snipers were Abyssinians, and did 
their best toward squaring the national accounts. 

Tazzuchi and his friends returned in the boat, 
safe and jubilant, and for the rest of that night the 
little salvage steamer was left in quietude. With 
the next daybreak the divers and their attendants 
once more applied themselves to labor. Kettle, as 
he watched, was amazed to see the energy they put 
into it. Certainly they seemed keen enough to get 
the specie weighed, and on board. Whatever pirati- 


254 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


cal plans they had got made up were evidently for 
afterward. 

But when day after day passed, and still none of 
the treasure was brought to the surface, he began 
to modify this original opinion. Tazzuchi — translat- 
ing the divers’ reports — said that the cause of the 
delay was the softness of the sea-floor. The heavy 
chests had sunk deep into the ooze, and directly a 
spadeful of the horrible slime was dug away, more 
slid in to fill the gap. Of course this might be true ; 
but there was only Tazzuchi’s word for it. The sea 
was too consistently opaque to give one a chance 
of seeing down from above the surface. 

Now as suspicion had got so deep a hold on 
Captain Kettle’s mind, he began to cudgel his brain 
for some new method by which the Italians could 
serve their purpose. He put himself supposititiously 
in Tazzuchi’s place, and made piratical theories bj^ 
the score. Most of them he had to dismiss after 
examination as impracticable, others he eliminated 
by natural selection; and finally one stood out as 
practicable beyond all the rest. 

For one thing it did not want many participants ; 
only the actual divers and Tazzuchi himself. For 
another, it would not brand the whole gang of 
them as criminals and pirates, but (properly man- 
aged) would make them rich without any advertised 
stigma or stain. In simple words, the method was 
this: the gold boxes must be removed from their 
original site, and hidden elsewhere under the water 
close at hand. The friendly slime would hnry them 
snugly out of sight. The old report of “un-get-at- 
able” would be adhered to, and finally the steamer 
would give up further salvage operations as hopeless 
(after fishing up some useless cargo out of the holds 


DAGO DIVERS 


255 


as a conscience salve) and steam away to port. 
There Tazzuchi and his friends would either desert 
or get themselves dismissed, charter a small vessel 
of their own, and go back for the plunder ; and with 
£8,000 in clear hard cash to divide, live prosperously 
(from an Italian standpoint) ever afterward. 

Kettle felt an unimaginative man’s complaeeney in 
ferreting out such a dramatic scheme, and began to 
think next upon the somewhat important detail of 
how to get proofs before he commenced to frustrate 
it. Chance seemed to make Tazzuchi play into his 
hand. The air-pump which had been damaged by 
the rifle bullet had been mended by the steamer’s 
engineers, and as there were two or three spare 
diving dresses on the ship. Captain Tazzuchi ex- 
pressed his intention of making a descent in person 
to inspect progress. 

“I didn’t do it before, because I didn’t want to 
make the men break time, but I can go down now 
without interrupting their work. Will you come off 
in the boat with me. Captain, and hand my life- 
line?” 

“I’ll borrow one of those spare dresses and share 
the pump with you,” said Kettle. 

Tazzuchi was visibly startled. “What do you 
mean?” 

“I mean that the pump will give air for two, and 
I’m coming down with you.” 

“But you know nothing about diving, and you 
might have an accident, and I should be responsible.” 

“Oh, I’ll risk that! You must nursery-maid me a 
bit.” 

Tazzuchi lowered his voice. “To tell the truth, 
I’m going to pay a surprise visit. I want to make 
sure those chaps below are doing the square thing. 


256 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


If they aren’t, and I cateh them, there’ll be a row, 
and they’ll use their knives.” 

“Fl’m!” said Kettle, “I’ve got no use for your 
local weapon as a general thing. I find a gun 
handiest. But at a pinch like this I’ll borrow a 
knife of you, and if it comes to an^^ one cutting my 
air-tube you’ll find I can use it pretty mischiev- 
ously.” 

“I wish you wouldn’t insist upon this,” said 
Tazzuchi persuasively. 

“I’m going to, anyway.” 

“I’m going down merely becamse it’s my duty.” 

“That’s the very same reason that’s taking me. 
Captain. I must ask you not to make any more 
objections. I’m a man that never changes his mind, 
once it’s made up.” 

Whereupon Tazzuchi shrugged his shoulders, and 
gave way. 

“Now,” thought Kettle to himself, “that man’s 
made up his mind to kill me if he gets the glimmer 
of a chance, and, as I’m not going to get wiped out 
this journey, he’ll do with a lot of watching.” 

It has been the present writer’s business at one 
time and another to point out that Captain Owen 
Kettle is a man of iron nerve ; but I cannot call to 
mind any instance where his indomitable courage 
was more severely tried than in this voluntary de- 
scent in the diving dress. The world beneath the 
waters was strange and dangerous to him ; his com- 
panion was a man against whom he held the black- 
est suspicion; the men at the pump (whose language 
he did not understand) might any moment cut off 
his supply, and leave him to drown like a puppy 
under a bucket. The circumstances combined were 
enough to daunt a Bayard. 


DAGO DIVERS 


257 


But Kettle felt that the men in the boat, who 
helped to adjust his stiff rubber dress, were regard- 
ing him with more than ordinary curiosity, and, for 
his own pride’s sake, he preserved an unruffled face. 
He even tried a rude jest in their own tongue before 
they made fast the helm.et on his head, and the 
cackle of their laughter was the last sound he heard 
before the metal dome closed the audible world 
away from him. 

They hung the weights over his chest and back, 
and Tazzuchi signed to him to descend. Kettle 
hitched round the sheath-knife to the front of his 
belt, and signed with politeness, “After you.” 

Tazzuchi did not argue the matter. He lifted his 
clumsy lead-soled feet over the side of the boat, got 
on the ladder, and climbed down out of sight. 
Kettle followed. The chill of the water crept up and 
closed over his head ; the steady throb- throb of the 
air-pump beat against his skull; and a little shiver 
took him in one small spot between the shoulder 
blades, because he knew that it was there that an 
Italian, if he can manage it, always plants a knife 
in his enemy. 

He reached the end of the ladder and slid down 
a rope. He felt curiously corky and insecure, but 
still when he reached the bottom he sank up to his 
knees in impalpable mud. He could foggily see 
Tazzuchi a few paces away waiting for him, and he 
went up to him at once. If the men in the boat, 
acting on orders, cut his air-tube, he wanted to be 
in a position to cut Captain Tazzuchi’s also with 
promptness. 

However, ever3rthing went peacefully just then. 
The Italian set off down a track in the slime, and 
Kettle waded laboriously after him. It was terrible 
17 


258 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


work making a passage tkrougli that white gluti- 
nous ooze, but they came to the wreck directly, and, 
working round her rusty flank, stood beside a great 
shallow pit, where two weird-looking gray sea- 
monsters showed in dim outline through the dense 
fog of the water. 

Sound does not carry down there in that quiet 
world, and the two new-comers stood for long 
enough before the two workers observed them. 
But one chanced to look up and see them watching 
and jogged the other with his spade, and then both 
frantically beckoned the visitors to come down into 
the pit. Tazzuchi led, and Kettle followed, wallow- 
ing down the slopes of slime, and there at the 
bottom, in the dim, milky light, one of the profes- 
sional divers slipped a shovel into his hand and 
thrust it downward, till it jarred against something 
solid underfoot. 

It was clear they had come upon the gold boxes, 
and they wished to impress upon the visitors, in 
underwater dumb show, that the find had only been 
made that very minute. It was a strange enough 
performance. Half-seen hands snapped red fingers 
in triumph. Ponderously booted feet did a dance 
of ecstasy in three feet of gluey mud. And mean- 
while, Kettle, with a hand on the haft of his knife, 
edged away from this uncanny demonstration, lest 
some one should slit his air-tube before he could pre- 
vent it. 

He had seen what he wanted ; he had no reason 
to wait longer; and besides, being a novice at 
diving, his lungs were half burst already in the 
effort to get breath, and his head was singing like 
a tea-um. The gold boxes were there, and if they 
were not brought to the surface, and carried hon- 


DAGO DIVERS 


259 


estly to Suez, the matter would have to be fought 
out above in God’s open air, and not in that horri- 
ble choking quagmire of slime and cruel water. And 
so, still guarding himself cannily, he got back again 
to the boat, and almost had it in him to shake 
hands with the men who eased him of that intoler- 
able helmet. 

Now far be it from me to raise even a suspicion 
that Captain Owen Kettle resented the fact that he 
had been robbed of a scuffle when the little salvage 
steamer actually did bring up in Suez harbor with 
the specie honestly locked in one of her staterooms. 
But that he was violently angry he adniits himself 
without qualification. He says he kicked himself 
for being such a bad judge of men. 

The Parakeet was in when they arrived, rebunker- 
ing for the run home, and Murray came off as fast 
as a crew could drive his boat to inquire the news. 

He saw Tazzuchi on the deck and accosted him 
with a vigorous handshake, and a ^ ‘Hullo, Fizz- 
hookey, old man, how goes it? Who’d have thought 
of seeing you here? Howdy, Captain Kettle. Had 
good fishing?” 

“Do you know Captain Tazzuchi?” 

“Somewhat. Why, we were both boys on the 
Conway together.” 

“You’re making some mistake. Captain Tazzuchi 
is an Italian.” 

“Oh, am I?” said Tazzuchi. “Not much of the 
Dago about me except the name.” 

“Well, you never told me that before.” 

“You never asked me, that I know of. I speak 
about enough of the lingo to carry on duty with, 
and I serve on an Italian ship because I couldn’t 
get a skipper’s billet on anything else. But I’m as 


260 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


English as either of you, and as English as Birds — 
or more English than Birds, seeing that they come 
from somewhere near Jerusalem. Great Scot, Cap- 
tain Kettle, can’t you tell a Dago yet for sure? 
Where have you been all your days?” 

Murray laughed. ‘‘Well, come across and discuss 
it in the Parakeet. I’ve got a case of champagne 
on board to wet my new ticket.” 

“Stay half a minute,” said Tazzuchi, “we’ll just 
get those boxes of gold down into your boat, Mur- 
ray, and ferry them across. I sha’n’t be sorry to 
have them out of my responsibility. The^^’re too 
big a temptation to leave handy for the crew there 
is on board here.” 

“Phew!” said Kettle, “it’s hot here in Suez. Great 
James! to think of the way I’ve been sweating 
about this blame’ ship without a scrap of need of 
it. Here, hurry up with the lucre-boxes. I want to 
get across to the old Parakeet and wash the taste 
of a lot of things out of my mouth.” 


CHAPTER XI 


THE DEAR INSURED. 

“He isn’t the ‘dear deceased’ yet by a very long 
ehalk,’’ said Captain Kettle. 

“If he was,’’ retorted Lupton with a dry smile, 
“my immediate interest in him would cease, and the 
Company would shrug its shoulders, and pay, and 
look pleasant. In the mean while he’s, shall we say, 
‘the dear insured,’ and a premium paying asset that 
the Company’s told me off to keep an eye on.” 

“Do much business in your particular line?” 

‘Why yes, recently a good deal. It’s got to be 
quite a fashionable industry of late to pick up some 
foolish young gentleman with expectations, insure 
his life for a big pile, knock him quietly on the head, 
and then come back home in a neat black suit to 
pocket the proceeds.” 

“Does this Mr. — ” Kettle referred to the passenger 
list — “Hamilton’s the rogue’s name, isn’t it?” 

“No, he’s the flat. Cranze is the — er — his friend 
who stands to draw the stamps.” 

“Does Mr. Hamilton know you?” 

“Never seen me in his life.” 

“Does this thief Cranze?” 

“Same.” 

“Then, sir. I’ll tell you what’s your ticket,” said 
Kettle, who had got an eye to business. “Take a 
passage with me out to the Gulf and back, and keep 
an eye on the young gentleman yourself. You’ll find 


262 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


it a bit cold in the Western Ocean at first, but once 
we get well in the Gulf Stream, and down toward 
New Orleans, I tell you you’ll just enjoy life. It’ll 
be a nice trip for you, and I’m sure I’ll do my best 
to make things comfortable for you.” 

“I’m sure you would. Captain, but it can’t be 
done at the price.” 

Kettle looked thoughtfully at the passenger list. 
“I could promise you a room to yourself. We’re not 
very full up this run. In fact, Mr. Hamilton and Mr. 
Cranze are the only two names I’ve got down so 
far, and I may as well tell you we’re not likely to 
have others. You see Birds are a very good line, 
but they lay themselves out more for cargo than 
passengers.” 

“So our local agent in Liverpool found out for us 
already, and that’s mostly why I’m here. Don’t 3^ou 
see, Captain, if the pair of them had started off to 
go tripping round the Mexican Gulf in one of the 
regular passenger boats, there would have been 
nothing suspicious about that. But when they book 
berths by you, why then it begins to look fishy at 
once.” 

Kettle turned on his companion with a sudden 
viciousness. “By James!” he snapped, “you better 
take care of your words, or there’ll be a man in 
this smoke-room with a broken jaw. I allow no 
one to sling slights at either me or my ship. No, 
nor at the firm either that owns both of us. You 
needn’t look round at the young lady behind the 
bar. She can’t hear what we’re saying across in 
this corner, and if even she could she’s quite welcome 
to know how I think about the matter. By James, 
do you think you can speak to me as if I was a 
common railway director? I can tell you that, as 


THE DEAR INSURED 


263 


Captain of a passenger boat, I’ve a very different 
social position.” 

“My dear sir,” said Lnpton soothingly, “to insult 
you was the last thing in my mind. I quite know 
you’ve got a fine ship, and a new ship, and a ship 
to be congratulated on. I’ve seen her. In fact I 
was on board and all over her only this morning. 
But what I meant to point out was (although I 
seem to have put it clumsily) that Messrs. Bird have 
chosen to schedule you for the lesser frequented Gulf 
ports, finding, as you hint, that cargo pays them 
better than passengers.” 

“Well?” 

“And naturally therefore an3rthing that was done 
on the Plamingo would not have the same fierce 
light of publicity on it that would get on — say — one 
of the Royal Mail boats. You see they bustle about 
between busy ports crammed with passengers who 
are just at their wits’ end for something to do. 
You know what a pack of passengers are. Give 
them a topic like this: Young man with expecta- 
tions suddenly knocked overboard, nobody knows 
by whom; ’nother young man on boat drawing a 
heavy insurance from him ; and they aren’t long in 
putting two and two together.” 

“You seem to think it requires a pretty poor brain 
to run a steam-packet,” said Kettle contemptuously. 
“How long would I be before I had that joker in 
irons?” 

“If he did it as openly as I have said, you’d arrest 
him at once. But you must remember Cranze will 
have been thinking out his game for perhaps a year 
beforehand, till he can see absolutely no flaw in it, 
till he thinks, in fact, there’s not the vaguest chance 
of being dropped on. If anything happens to Hamil- 


264 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


ton, his dear friend Cranze will be the last man to 
be suspected of it. And mark you, he’s a clever 
chap. It isn’t your clumsy, ignorant knave who 
turns insurance robber — and incidentally mur- 
derer.” 

“Still, I don’t see how he’d be better off on my 
ship than he would be on the bigger passenger 
packets.” 

“Just because you won’t have a crowd of passen- 
gers. Captain, a ship’s like a woman; any breath 
of scandal damages her reputation, whether it’s true 
and deserved or not. And a ship-captain’s like a 
woman’s husband ; he’ll put up with a lot to keep 
any trace of scandal away from her.” 

“That’s the holy truth.” 

“A skipper on one of the bigger passenger lines 
would be just as keen as you could be not to have 
his ship mixed up with anything discreditable. But 
passengers are an impious lot. They are just burst- 
ing for want of a job, most of them; they revel in 
anything like an accident to break the monoton3^; 
and if they can spot a bit of foul play — or say they 
helped to spot it — why, there they are, supplied 
with one good solid never-stale yarn for all the rest 
of their natural lives. So you see they’ve every in- 
ducement to do a lot of ferreting that a ship’s 
officers (with other work on hand) would not dream 
about.” 

Captain Kettle pulled thoughtfully at his neat 
red pointed beard. “You’re putting the thing in a 
new light, sir, and I thank you for what you’ve 
said. I see my course plain before me. So soon as 
we have dropped the pilot, I shall go straight to 
this Mr. Cranze, and tell him that from information 
received I hear he’s going to put Mr. Hamilton over 


THE DEAR INSURED 


265 


the side. And then I shall say : ‘Into irons you go, 
my man, so soon as ever Hamilton’s missing.’” 

Lupton laughed rather angrily. ‘ ‘And what would 
be the result of that, do you think?” 

“Cranze will get mad. He’ll probably talk a good 
deal, and that I shall allow within limits. But he’ll 
not hit me. I’m not the kind of a man that other 
people see fit to raise their hands to.” 

“You don’t look it. But, m 3 ^ good sir, don’t you 
see that if you speak out like that, you’ll probably 
scare the beggar off his game altogether?” 

“And why not? Do you think my ship’s a blessed 
detective novel that’s to be run just for your amuse- 
ment?” 

Lupton tapped the table slowly with his fingers. 
“Now look here. Captain,” he said, “there’s achance 
here of our putting a stop to a murderous game 
that’s been going on too long, by catching a rogue 
red-handed. It’s to our interest to get a conviction 
and make an example. It’s to your interest to keep 
your ship free from a fuss.” 

“All the way.” 

“Quite so. My Company’s prepared to buy your 
interest up.” 

“You must put it plainer than that.” 

“I’ll put it as definitely as you like. I’ll give you 
£20 to keep your eye on these men, and say nothing 
about what I’ve told you, but just watch. If 3 ^ou 
catch Cranze so clearly trying it on that the Courts 
give a conviction, the Company will pay you £200.” 

“It’s a lot of money.” 

“My Company will find it a lot cheaper than 
paying out £20,000, and that’s what Hamilton’s 
insured for.” 

“Phew! I didn’t know we were dealing with 


266 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


such big figures. Well, Mr. Cranze has got his in- 
ducements to murder the man, anyway.” 

“I told you that from the first. Now, Captain, 
are you going to take my check for that preliminary 
£ 20 ?” 

“Hand it over,” said Kettle. “I see no objections. 
And you may as well give me a bit of a letter about 
the balance.” 

“I’ll do both,” said Lupton, and took out his 
stylograph, and called a waiter to bring him hotel 
writing paper. 

Now Captain Owen Kettle, once he had taken up 
this piece of employment, entered into it with a kind 
of chastened joy. The Life Insurance Company’s 
agent had rather sneered at ship-captains as a class 
(so he considered), and though the man did his best 
to be outwardly civil, it was plain that he consid- 
ered a mob of passengers the intellectual superiors 
of any master mariner. So Kettle intended to prove 
himself the “complete detective” out of sheer esprit 
de corps. 

As he had surmised, Messrs. Hamilton and Cranze 
remained the Plamingo^ s only two passengers, and 
so he considered he might devote full attention to 
them without being remarkable. If he had been a 
steward making sure of his tips he could not have 
been more solicitous for their welfare ; and to say he 
watched them like a cat is putting the thing feebly. 
Any man with an uneasy conscience must have 
grasped from the very first that the plot had been 
guessed at, and that this awkward little skipper, 
with his oppressive civilities, was merely waiting 
his chance to act as Nemesis. 

But either Mr. Cranze had an easy mind, and 


THE DEAR INSURED 


267 


Lupton had unjustly maligned him, or he was a 
fellow of the most brazen assurance. He refused to 
take the least vestige of a warning. He came on 
board with a dozen cases of champagne and four of 
liqueur brandy as a part of his personal luggage, 
and his first question to every official he came across 
was how much he would have to pay per bottle for 
corkage. 

As he made these inquiries from a donkey-man, 
two deck hands, three mates, a trimmer, the third 
engineer, two stewards, and Captain Kettle himself, 
the answers he received were various, and some of 
them were profane. He seemed to take a delight in 
advertising his chronic drunkenness, and between- 
whiles he made a silly show of the fact that he 
carried a loaded revolver in his hip pocket. “Lots 
fellows do’t now,” he explained. “Never know who- 
you-may-meet. S’ a mos’ useful habit.” 

Now Captain Kettle, in his inmost heart, consid- 
ered that Cranze was nerving himself up with drink 
to the committal of his horrid deed, and so he took 
a very natural precaution. Before they had dropped 
the Irish coast he had managed to borrow the re- 
volver, unbeknown to its owner, and carefully ex- 
tracted the powder from the cartridges, replacing 
the bullets for the sake of appearances. And as it 
happened, the chief engineer, who was a married 
man as well as a humorist, though working inde- 
pendently of his skipper, carried the matter still 
further. He, too, got hold of the weapon, and 
brazed up the breech-block immovably, so that it 
could not be surreptitiously reloaded. He said that 
his wife had instructed him to take no chances, and 
that meanwhile, as a fool’s pendant, the revolver 
was as good as ever it had been. 


268 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


The revolver became the joke of the ship. Cranze 
kept up a steady soak on king’s peg — putting in a 
good three fingers of the liqueur brandy before 
filling up the tumbler with champagne — and was 
naturally inclined to be argumentative. Any one of 
the ship’s company who happened to be near him with 
a little time to spare would get up a discussion on 
any matter that came to his mind, work things 
gently to a climax, and then contradict Cranze 
flatly. Upon which, out would come the revolver, 
and down would go the humorist on his knees, 
pitifully begging for pardon and life, to the vast 
amusement of the onlookers. 

Pratt, the chief engineer, was the inventor of this 
game, but he openly renounced all patent rights. 
He said that everybody on board ought to take the 
stage in turn — he himself was quite content to retire 
on his early laurels. So all hands took pains to 
contradict Cranze and to cower with a fine show 
of dramatic fright before his spiked revolver. 

All the Flamingoes company except one man, that 
is. Frivolity of this sort in no way suited the 
appetite of Captain Owen Kettle. He talked with 
Cranze with a certain dry cordiality. And at times 
he contradicted him. In fact the little sailor contra- 
dicted most passengers if he talked to them for long. 
He was a man with strong opinions, and he re- 
garded tolerance as mere weakness. Moreover, 
Cranze’s chronic soaking nauseated him. But at the 
same time, if his civility was scant, Cranze never 
lugged out the foolish weapon in his presence. There 
was a something in the shipmaster’s eye which 
daunted him. The utmost height to which his re- 
sentment could reach with Captain Kettle was a 
folding of the arms and a scowl which was intended 


THE DEAR INSURED 


269 


to be majestic, but which was frequently spoiled by 
a hiccough. 

In pleasant contrast to this weak, contemptible 
knave was the man Hamilton, his dupe and pro- 
spective victim. For him Kettle formed a liking at 
once, though for the first days of the voyage it was 
little enough he saw of his actual presence. Hamil- 
ton was a bad sailor and a lover of warmth, and 
as the Western Ocean was just then in one of its 
cold and noisy moods, this passenger went shudder- 
ingly out of the cabin when meals came on, and 
returned shudderingly from the cold on deck as soon 
they were over. 

But when the Flamingo began to make her south- 
ing, and the yellow tangles of weed floating in 
emerald waves bore evidence that they were steaming 
against the warm current of the Gulf Stream, then 
Hamilton came into view. He found a spot on the 
top of the fiddley under the lee of a tank where a 
chair could stand, and sat there in the glow of sun 
and boilers, and basked complacently. 

He was a shy, nervous little man, and though 
Kettle had usually a fine contempt for all weakness, 
somehow his heart went out to this retiring passen- 
ger almost at first sight. Myself, I am inclined to 
think it was because he knew him to be hunted, 
knew him to be the object of a murderous conspir- 
acy, and loathed most thoroughly the vulgar rogue 
who was his treacherous enemy. But Captain 
Kettle scouts the idea that he was stirred by any 
such feeble, womanish motives. Kettle was a poet 
himself, and with the kinship of species he felt the 
poetic fire glowing out from the person of this Mr. 
Hamilton. At least, so he says ; and if he has de- 
ceived himself on the matter, which, from an out- 


.270 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


sider’s point of view, seems likely, I am sure the 
error is quite uneonseious. The little sailor may 
have his faults, as the index of these pages has 
shown ; but untruthfulness has never been set down 
to his tally, and I am not going to accuse him of 
it now. 

Still, it is a sure thing that talk on the subject of 
verse making did not come at once. Kettle was im- 
mensely sensitive about his accomplishment, and had 
writhed under brutal scoffs and polished ridicule 
at his poetry more times than he cared to count. 
With passengers especially he kept it scrupulously 
in the background, even as he did his talent for 
making sweet music on the accordion. 

But somehow he and Hamilton, after a few days^ 
acquaintance, seemed to glide into the subject im- 
perceptibly. Mutual confidences followed in the 
course of nature. It seemed that Hamilton too, 
like Kettle, was a devotee of the stiller forms of 
verse. 

“You see. Skipper,” he said, “I.Ve been a pretty 
bad lot, and I’ve made things hum most of my time, 
and so I suppose I get my hankerings after rest- 
fulness as the natural result of contrast.” 

“Same here, sir. Ashore I can respect myself, and 
in our chapel circle, though I say it myself, you’ll 
find few more respected men. But at sea I shouldn’t 
like to tell you what I’ve done; I shouldn’t like to 
tell any one. If a saint has to come down and 
skipper the brutes we have to ship as sailor-men 
nowadays, he’d wear out his halo flinging it at 
them. And when matters have been worst, and 
I’ve been bashing the hands about, or doing things 
to carry out an owner’s order that I’d blush even 
to think of ashore, why then, sir, gentle verse, to 


THE DEAR INSURED 


271 


tunes I know, seems to bubble up inside me like 
springs in a barren land.” 

“Well, I don’t know about that,” said Hamilton 
doubtfully, “but when I get thoroughly sick of my- 
self, and wish I was dead, I sometimes stave off 
putting a shot through my silly head by getting a 
pencil and paper, and shifting my thoughts out 

of the beastly world I know, into well, it’s hard 

to explain. But I get sort of notions, don’t you 
see, and they seem to run best in verse. I write ’em 
when the fit’s on me, and I bum ’em when the fit’s 
through; and you’ll hardly think it, but I never 
told a living soul I ever did such a thing till I told 
you this minute. My set — I mean, I couldn’t bear 
to be laughed at. But you seem to be a fellow 
that’s been in much the same sort of box yourself.” 

“I don’t know quite that. At any rate, I’ve never 
thought of shooting myself.” 

“Oh, I didn’t mean to suggest we were alike at 
all in detail. I was only thinking we had both 
seen rough times. Lord forbid that any man should 
ever be half the fool that I have been.” He sighed 
heavily. — “However, sufficient for the day. Look 
out over yonder; there’s a bit of color for you.” 

A shoal of flying-fish got up out of the warm, 
shining water and ran away over the ripples like 
so many silver rats; yellow tangles of Gulf- weed 
swam in close squadron on the emerald sea; and 
on the western horizon screw-pile lighthouses stood 
up out of the water, marking the nearness of the 
low-lying Floridan beaches, and reminding one of 
mysterious Everglades beyond. 

“A man, they tell me,” said Hamilton, “can go 
into that country at the back there, and be a her- 
mit, and live honestly on his own fish and fruit. 


272 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


I believe I’d like that life. I could go there, and 
be decent, and perhaps in time I should forget 
things.” 

“Don’t you try it. The mosquitoes are shocking.” 

“There are worse devils than mosquitoes. Now I 
should have thought there was something about 
those Everglades that would have appealed to you, 
Skipper?” 

“There isn’t, and I’ve been there. You want a 
shot-gun in Florida to shoot callers with, not eat- 
ables. I’ve written verse there, and good verse, 
but it was the same old tale, sir, that brought it 
up to my fingers’ ends. I’d been having trouble just 
then — yes, bad trouble. No, Mr. Hamilton, you go 
home, sir, to England and find a country place, and 
get on a farm, and watch the com growing, and 
hear the birds sing, and get hold of the smells of 
the fields, and the colors of the trees, and then you’ll 
enjoy life and turn out poetry you can be proud of.” 

“Doesn’t appeal to me. You see you look upon 
the country with a countryman’s eye.” 

“Me,” said Kettle. “I’m seaport and sea bred 
and brought up, and all I know of fields and a 
farm is what I’ve seen from a railway-carriage 
window. No, I’ve had to work too hard for my 
living, and for a living for Mrs. Kettle and the 
youngsters, to have any time for that sort of en- 
joyment; but a man can’t help knowing what he 
wants, sir, can he? And that’s what I’m aiming 
at, and it’s for that I’m scratching together every 
sixpence of money I can lay hands on.” 

But here a sudden outcry below broke in upon 
their talk. “That’s Mr. Cranze,” said Kettle. “He’ll 
be going too far in one of his tantrums one of tliese 
days.” 


THE DEAR INSURED 


273 


“I’m piously hoping the drunken brute will tum- 
ble overboard,” Hamilton muttered ; “it would save 
a lot of trouble for everybody. Eh, well,” he said, 
“I suppose I’d better go and look after him,” and 
got up and went below. 

Captain Kettle sat where he was, musing. He 
had no fear that Cranze, the ship’s butt and drunk- 
ard, would murder his man in broad, staring day- 
light, especially as, judging from the sounds, others 
of the ship’s company were at present baiting him. 
But he did not see his way to earning that extra 
£200, which he would very much like to have fin- 
gered. To let this vulgar, drunken ruffian commit 
some overt act against Hamilton’s life, without 
doing him actual damage, seemed an impossibility. 
He had taken far to great a fancy for Hamilton 
to allow him to be hurt. He was beginning to be 
mystified by the whole thing. The case was by no 
means so simple and straightforward as it had 
looked when Lupton put it to him in the hotel 
smoking-room ashore. 

Had Cranze been any other passenger, he would 
have stopped his drunken riotings by taking away 
the drink, and by giving strict orders that the man 
was to be supplied with no further intoxicants. But 
Cranze sober might be dangerous, while Cranze 
tipsy was merely a figure of ridicule ; so he submitted, 
very much against his grain, to having his ship 
made into a bear-garden, and anxiously awaited 
developments. 

The Flamingo cleared the south of Florida, sighted 
the high land of Cuba, and stood across through 
the Yucatan channel to commence her peddling busi- 
ness in Honduras, and at some twenty ports she 
came to an anchor six miles off shore, and hooted 
18 


274 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


with her siren till lighters came off through the 
surf and the shallows. 

Machinery they sent ashore at these little-known 
stations, eoal, powder, dress-goods, and pianos, 
receiving in return a varied assortment of hides, 
mahogany, dyewoods, and some parcels of ore. 
There was a small ferrying business done also be- 
tween neighboring ports in unclean native passen- 
gers, who harbored on the foredeck, and complained 
of want of deference from the crew. 

Hamilton appeared to extract some melancholy 
pleasure from it all, and Cranze remained unvary- 
ingly drunk. Cranze passed insults to casual stran- 
gers who came on board and did not know his 
little ways, and the casual strangers (after the 
custom of their happy country) tried to knife him, 
but were always knocked over in the nick of time, 
by some member of the Flamingo' s crew. Hamilton 
said there was a special providence which looks after 
drunkards of Cranze’s type, and declined to interfere ; 
and Cranze said he refused to be chided by a qualified 
teetotaller, and mixed himself further king’s pegs. 

Messrs. Bird, Bird and Co., being of an economi- 
cal turn of mind, did not fall into the error of 
overmanning their ships, and so as one of the mates 
chose to be knocked over by six months’ old mala- 
rial fever, Captain Kettle had practically to do a 
mate’s duty as well as his own. A mate in the 
mercantile marine is officially an officer and some 
fraction of a gentleman, but on tramp steamers and 
liners where cargo is of more account than pas- 
sengers — even when they dine at half-past six, instead 
of at midday — a mate has to perform manual labors 
rather harder than that accomplished by any three 
regular deck hands. 


THE DEAR INSURED 


275 


I do not intend to imply that Kettle actually 
drove a winch, or acted as stevedore below, or 
sweated over bales as they swung up through a 
hatch, but he did work as gangway man, and serve 
at the tally desk, and oversee generally while the 
crew worked cargo; and his watch over the pas- 
sengers was at this period of necessity relaxed. He 
^ tried hard to interest Hamilton in the mysteries of 
hold stowage, in order to keep him under his im- 
mediate eye. But Hamilton bluntly confessed to 
loathing anything that was at all useful, and so he 
perforce had to be left to pick his own position 
under the awnings, there to doze, and smoke cigar- 
ettes, and scribble on paper as the moods so seized 
him. 

It was off one of the ports in the peninsula of 
Yucatan, toward the Bay of Campeachy, that 
Cranze chose to fall overboard. The name of the 
place was announced by some one when they 
brought up, and Cranze asked where it was. Kettle 
marked it off with a leg of the dividers on the chart. 
“Yucatan,” said Cranze, “that’s the ruined cities 

shop, isn’t it?” He shaded his unsteady eyes, and 

looked out at a clump of squalid huts just showing 
on the beach beyond some three miles of tumbling 
surf. “Gum! here’s a ruined city all hot and wait- 
ing. Home of the ancient Aztecs, and colony of 
the Atlanteans, and all that. Skipper, I shall go 
ashore, and enlarge my mind.” 

“You can go if you like,” said Kettle, “but re- 
member, I steam away from here as soon as ever I 
get the cargo out of her, and I wait for no man. 
And mind not to get us upset in the surf going 
there. The watei* round here swarms with sharks, 
and I shouldn’t like any of them to get indigestion.” 


276 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


“Seem trying to make yourself jolly ob — bub — 
jectiable’s morning,” grumbled Cranze, and invited 
Hamilton to aeeompany him on shore forthwith. 
“Let’s go and see the girls. Ruined eities should 
have ruined girls and ruined pubs to give us some 
ruined amusement. We been on this steamer too 
long, an’ we want variety. V’riety’s eharming. 
Come along and see ruined v’riety.” 

Hamilton shrugged his shoulders. “Drunk as us- 
ual, are you? You silly owl, whatever ruined cities 
there may be, are a good fifty miles in the bush.” 

“ ’S all you know about it. I can see handsome 
majestic ruin over there on the beach, an’ I’m going 
to see it ’out further delay. ’S a duty I owe to my- 
self to enlarge the mind by studying the great 
monuments of the past.” 

“If you go ashore, you’ll be marooned as safe as 
houses, and Lord knows when the next steamer 
will call. The place reeks of fever, and as your 
present state of health is distinctly rocky, you’ll 
catch it, and be dead and out of the way inside a 
week easily. Look here, don’t be an ass.” 

“Look here yourself. Are you a competent medi- 
cated practitioner?” 

“Oh, go and get sober.” 

“Answer me. Are you competent medicated prac- 
titioner?” 

“No, I’m not.” 

“Very well then. Don’t you presume t’lecture me 
on state of my health. No reply, please. I don’ 
wan’ to be encumbered with your further acquain- 
tance. I wish you a go’ morning.” 

Hamilton looked at Captain Kettle under his 
brows. “Will you advise me,” he said, “what I 
ought to do.” 


THE DEAR INSURED 


277 


“I should say it would be healthier for you to 
let him have his own way.” 

‘‘Thanks,” said Hamilton, and turned away. “I’ll 
act on that advice.” 

Now the next few movements of Mr. Cranze are 
wrapped in a certain degree of mystery. He worried 
a very busy third mate, and got tripped on the hard 
deck for his pains ; he was ejected forcibly from the 
engineers’ mess-room, where it was supposed he 
had designs on the whisky; and he was rescued 
by the carpenter from an irate half-breed Mosquito 
Indian, who seemed to have reasons for desiring 
his blood there and then on the spot. But how 
else he passed the time, and as to how he got over 
the side and into the water, there is no evidence to 
show. 

There were theories that he had been put there 
by violence as a just act of retribution; there was 
an idea that he was tr3dng to get into a lighter 
which lay alongside for a cast ashore, but saw 
two lighters, and got into the one which didn’t 
exist; and there were other theories also, but they 
were mostly frivolous. But the very undoubted fact 
remained that he was there in the water, that there 
was an ugly sea running, that he couldn’t swim, 
and that the place bristled with sharks. 

A couple of lifebuoys, one after the other, hit him 
accurately on the head, and the lighter cast off, and 
backed down to try and pick him up. He did not 
bring his head on to the surface again, but stuck 
up an occasional hand, and grasped with it franti- 
cally. And, meanwhile, there was great industry 
among the black triangular dorsal fins that adver- 
tised the movements of the sharks which owned 
them underneath the surface. Nobody on board 


278 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


the Flamingo had any particular love for Cranze, 
but all hands crowded to the rail and shivered 
and felt sick at the thought of seeing him gobbled 
up. 

Then out of the middle of these spectators jumped 
the mild, delicate Hamilton, with a volley of bad 
language at his own foolishness, and lit on a nice 
sleek wave-crest, feet first in an explosion of spray. 
Away scurried the converging sharks’ fins, and down 
shot Hamilton out of sight. 

What followed came quickly. Kettle, with a tre- 
mendous flying leap, landed somehow on the deck 
of the lighter, with bones unbroken. He cast a 
bowline on to the end of the main sheet, and, 
watching his chance, hove the bight of it cleverly 
into Hamilton’s grasp, and as Hamilton had come 
up with Cranze frenziedly clutching him round the 
neck. Kettle was able to draw his catch toward 
the lighter’s side without further delay. 

By this time the men who had gone below for 
that purpose had returned with a good supply of 
coal, and a heavy fusillade of the black lumps kept 
the sharks at a distance, at any rate for the mo- 
ment. Kettle heaved in smartly, and eager hands 
gripped the pair as they swirled up alongside, and 
there they were on the lighter’s deck, spitting, 
dripping, and gasping. But here came an unex- 
pected developement. As soon as he had got back 
his wind, the mild Hamilton turned on his fellow 
passenger like a very fury, hitting, kicking, swear- 
ing, and almost gnashing with his teeth; and Cranze, 
stricken to a sudden soberness by his ducking, col- 
lected himself after the first surprise, and returned 
the blows with a murderous interest. 

But one of the mates, who had followed his cap- 



OUT OP' THE MIDDLE OF THESE SPECTATORS JUMPED THE MILD, 

DELICATE HAMILTON. 


IPa^e 278. 




THE DEAR INSURED 


279 


tain down on to the lighter to bear a hand, took a 
quiek method of stopping the scuffle. He picked up 
a cargo-sling, slipped it round Cranze’s waist, hooked 
on the winch-chain, and passed the word to the 
deck above. Somebody alive to the jest turned on 
steam, and of a sudden Cranze was plucked aloft, 
and hung there under the derrick-sheave, struggling 
impotently, like some insane jumping- jack. 

Amid the yells of laughter which followed, Hamil- 
ton laughed also, but rather hysterically. Kettle 
put a hand kindly on his wet shoulder. “Come on 
board again,” he said. “If you lie down in your 
room for an hour or so, you’ll be all right again 
then. You’re a bit over-done. I shouldn’t like you 
to make a fool of yourself.” 

“Make a fool of myself,” was the bitter reply. 
“I’ve made a bigger fool of myself in the last three 
minutes than any other man could manage in a 
life-time.” 

“I’ll get you the Royal Humane Society’s medal 
for that bit of a job, anyway.” 

“Give me a nice rope to hang myself with,” said 
Hamilton ungraciously, “that would be more to the 
point. Here, for the Lord’s sake let me be, or I 
shall go mad.” He brushed aside all help, clambered 
up the steamer’s high black side again, and went 
down to his room. 

“That’s the worst of these poetic natures,” Kettle 
mused as he, too, got out of the lighter; “they’re so 
highly strung.” 

Cranze, on being lowered down to deck again, 
and finding his tormentors too many to be retal- 
iated upon, went below and changed, and then came 
up again and found solace in more king’s pegs. He 
was not specially thankful to Hamilton for saving 


280 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


his life; said, in fact, that it was his plain duty 
to render such trifling assistance ; and further 
stated that if Hamilton found his way over the 
side, he, Cranze, would not stir a finger to pull 
him back again. 

He was very much annoyed at what he termed 
Hamilton’s “unwarrantable attack,” and still further 
annoyed at his journey up to the derrick’s sheave in 
the cargo-sling, which he also laid to Hamilton’s 
door. When any of the ship’s company had a min- 
ute or so to spare, they came and gave Cranze 
good advice and spoke to him of his own unlov- 
ableness, and Cranze hurled brimstone back at them 
unceasingly, for king’s peg in quantity always 
helped his vocabulary of swear-words. 

Meanwhile the Flamingo steamed up and dropped 
cargo wherever it was consigned, and she abased 
herself to gather fresh cargo wherever any cargo 
offered. It was Captain Kettle who did the abasing, 
and he did not like the job at all; but he remem- 
bered that Birds paid him specifically for this among 
other things ; and also that if he did not secure the 
cargo, some one else would steam along, and eat 
dirt, and snap it up ; and so he pocketed his pride 
(and his commission) and did his duty. He called 
to mind that he was not the only man in the 
world who earned a living out of uncongenial 
employment. The creed of the South Shields 
chapel made a point of this: it preached that to 
every man, according to his strength, is the cross 
dealt out which he has to bear. And Captain Owen 
Kettle could not help being conscious of his own 
vast lustiness. 

But one morning, before the Flamingo had fin- 
ished with her calls on the ports of the Texan 


THE DEAR INSURED 


281 


rivers, a matter happened on board of her which 
stirred the pulse of her being to a very different 
gait. The steward who brought Captain Kettle’s 
early coffee coughed, and evidently wanted an in- 
vitation to speak. 

“Well?’ said Kettle. 

“It’s about Mr. Hamilton, sir. I can’t find ’im 
an3^wheres.” 

“Have you searched the ship?” 

“Hunofiicially, sir.” 

“Well, get the other two stewards, and do it 
thoroughly.” 

The steward went out, and Captain Kettle lifted 
the coffee cup and drank a salutation to the dead. 
From that very moment he had a certain foreboding 
that the worst had happened. “Here’s luck, my lad, 
wherever you now may be. That brute Cranze has 
got to windward of the pair of us, and your in- 
surance money’s due this minute. I only sent that 
steward to search the ship for form’s sake. There 
was the link of poetry between you and me, lad; 
and that’s closer than most people could guess 
at ; and I know, as sure as if your ghost stood here 
to tell me, that you’ve gone. How, I’ve got to 
find out.” 

He put down the cup, and went to the bath- 
room for his morning’s tub. “I’m to blame, I 
know,” he mused on, “for not taking better care 
of you, and I’m not trying to excuse myself. You 
were so brimful of poetry that you hadn’t room 
left for any thought of your own skin, like a chap 
such as I am is bound to have. Besides, you’ve 
been well-off all your time and you haven’t learned 
to be suspicious. Well, what’s done’s done, and it 
can’t be helped.- But, my lad, I want you to look 


282 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


on while I hand in the bill. It’ll do you good to 
see Cranze pay up the account.” 

Kettle went through his careful toilet, and then 
in his spruce white drill went out and walked brisk- 
ly up and down the hurricane deck till the steward 
came with the report. His forebodings had not 
led him astray. Hamilton was not on board: the 
certain alternative was that he lay somewhere 
in the warm Gulf water astern, as a helpless dead 
body. 

“Tell the Chief Officer,” he said, “to get a pair of 
irons out of store and bring them down to Mr. 
Cranze’s room. I’m going there now.” 

He found Cranze doctoring a very painful head 
with the early application of stimulant, and Cranze 
asked him what the devil he meant by not knocking 
at the door before opening it. 

Captain Kettle whipped the tumbler out of the 
passenger’s shaking fingers, and emptied its contents 
into the wash-basin. 

“I’m going to see you hanged shortly, you drunk- 
en beast,” he said, “but in the mean while you may 
as well get sober for a change, and explain things 
up a bit.” 

Cranze swung his legs out of the bunk and sat 
up. He was feeling very totter3^, and the pain- 
fulness of his head did not improve his temper. 
“Look here,” he said, “I’ve had enough of your 
airs and graces. I’ve paid for my passage on this 
rubbishy old water-pusher of yours, and I’ll trouble 
you to keep a civil tongue in your head, or I’ll 
report you to your owners. You are like a railway 
guard, my man. After you have seen that your 
passengers have got their proper tickets, it’s your 
duty to ” 


THE DEAR INSURED 


283 


Mr. Cranze’s connective remarks broke ofF here 
for the time being. He found himself suddenly 
plucked away from the bunk by a pair of iron 
hands, and hustled out through the state-room 
door. He was a tall man, and the hands thrust 
him from below, upward, and, though he struggled 
wildly and madly, all his efforts to have his own 
way were futile. Captain Owen Kettle had handled 
far too many really strong men in this fashion to 
even lose breath over a dram-drinking passenger. 
So Cranze found himself hurtled out on to the lower 
fore-deck, where somebody handcuffed him neatly to 
an iron stanchion, and presently a mariner, by Cap- 
tain Kettle’s orders, rigged a hose, and mounted on 
the iron bulwark above him, and let a three-inch 
stream of chilly brine slop steadily on to his head. 

The situation, from an onlooker’s point of view, 
was probably ludicrous enough, but what daunted 
the patient was that nobody seemed to take it as 
a joke. There were a dozen men of the crew who 
had drawn near to watch, and yesterday all these 
would have laughed contemptuously at each of his 
contortions. But now they are all stricken to a 
sudden solemnity. 

“Spell-o,” ordered Kettle. “Let’s see if he’s sober 
yet.” 

The man on the bulwarks let the stream from the 
hose flop overboard, where it ran out into a stream 
of bubbles which joined the wake. 

Cranze gasped back his breath, and used it in a 
torrent of curses. 

“Play on him again,” said Kettle, and selected a 
good black before-breakfast cigar from his pocket. 
He lit it with care. The man on the bulwark 
shifted his shoulder for a better hold against the 


284 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


derrick-guy, and swung the limp hose in-board 
again. The water splashed down heavily on 
Cranze’s head and shoulders, and the onlookers took 
stoek of him without a trace of emotion. They had 
most of them seen the remedy applied to inebriates 
before, and so they watehed Cranze make his grad- 
ual recovery with the eyes of experts. 

“Spell-o,” ordered Kettle some five minutes later, 
and onee more the hose vomited sea water ungraee- 
fully into the sea. This time Cranze had the sense 
to hold his tongue till he was spoken to. He was 
very white about the faee, except for his nose, whieh 
was red, and his eye had brightened up considerably. 
He was cjuite sober, and quite able to weigh any 
words that were dealt out to him. 

“Now,” said Kettle judieially, “what have you 
done with Mr. Hamilton?” 

“Nothing.” 

“You deny all knowledge of how he got over- 
board?” 

Cranze was visibly startled. “Of course I do. Is 
he overboard?” 

“He can’t be found on this ship. Therefore he is 
over the side. Therefore you put him there.” 

Cranze was still more startled. But he kept him- 
self in hand. “Look here,” he said, “what rot I 
What should I know about the fellow? I haven’t 
seen him since last night.” 

“So 3^ou say. But I don’t see why I should believe 
you. In fact, I don’t.” 

“Well, you can suit yourself about that, but it’s 
true enough. Why in the name of misehief should 
I want to meddle with the poor beggar? If you’re 
thinking of the bit of a serap we had yesterday. I’ll 
own I was full at the time. And so must he have 


THE DEAR INSURED 


285 


been. At least I don’t know why else he should 
have set upon me like he did. At any rate that’s 
not a thing a man would want to murder him for.” 

“No, I should say £20,000 is more in your line.” 

“What are you driving at?” 

“You know quite well. You got that poor fellow 
insured just before this trip, you got him to make 
a will in your favor, and now you’ve committed a 
dirty, clumsy murder just to finger the dollars.” 

Cranze broke into uncanny hysterical laughter. 
“That chap insured; that chap make a will in my 
favor? Why, he hadn’t a penny. It was me that 
paid for his passage. I’d been on the tear a bit, 
and the Jew fellow I went to about raising the 
wind did say something about insuring, I know, 
and made me sign a lot of law papers. They made 
out I was in such a chippy state of health that 
they’d not let me have any more money unless I 
came on some beastly dull sea voyage to recruit 
a bit, and one of the conditions was that one of 
the boys was to come along too and look after 
me.” 

“You’ll look pretty foolish when you tell that thin 
tale to a jury.” 

“Then let me put something else on to the back 
of it. I’m not Cranze at all. I’m Hamilton. I’ve 
been in the papers a good deal just recently, because 
I’d been flinging my money around, and I didn’t 
want to get stared at on board here. So Cranze 
and I swapped names, just to confuse people. It 
seems to have worked very well.” 

“Yes,” said Kettle, “it’s worked so well that I 
don’t think you’ll get a jury to believe that either. 
As you don’t seem inclined to make a clean breast 
of it, you can now retire to your room, and be 


286 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


restored to your personal comforts. I can’t hand 
you over to the police without inconvenience to 
myself till we get to New Orleans, so I shall keep 
3^ou in irons till we reach there. Steward — where’s 
a steward? Ah, here you are. See this man is kept 
in his room, and see he has no more liquor. I make 
3’ou responsible for him.” 

“Yes, sir,” said the steward. 

Continuously the dividends of Bird, Bird and Co. 
outweighed every other consideration, and the 
Flamingo dodged on with her halting voyage. At 
the first place he put in at. Kettle sent off an ex- 
travagant eablegram of recent happenings to the 
representative of the Insurance Company in England. 
It was not the cotton season, and the Texan ports 
yielded the steamer little, but she had a ton or so 
of cargo for almost every one of them, and she 
delivered it with neatness, and clamored for cargo 
in return. She was “working up a connection.” 
She swung round the Gulf till she came to where 
logs borne by the Mississippi stick out from the 
white sand, and she wasted a little time, and 
steamed past the nearest outlet of the delta, because 
Captain Kettle did not personally know its pilotage. 
He was getting a very safe and cautious navigator 
in these latter days of his prosperity. 

So she made for the Port Eads pass, pieked up a 
pilot from the station by the lighthouse, and 
steamed cautiously up to the quarantine station, 
dodging the sandbars. Her one remaining passenger 
had passed from an aetive nuisanee to a close and 
unheard prisoner, and his presence was almost for- 
gotten b^^ every one on board, exeept Kettle and the 
steward who looked after him. The merchant 
seaman of these latter days has to pay such a 


THE DEAR INSURED 


287 


strict attention to business, that he has no time 
whatever for extraneous musings. 

The Flamingo got a clean bill from the doctor at 
the quarantine station, and emerged triumphantly 
from the cluster of craft doing penance, and, with 
a fresh pilot, steamed on up the 3^ellow river, past 
the white sugar-mills, and the heav3^ C3’'presses be- 
hind the banks. And in due time the pilot brought 
her up to New Orleans, and, with his glasses on the 
bridge. Kettle saw his acquaintance, Mr. Lupton, 
waiting for him on the levee. 

He got his steamer berthed in the crowded tier, 
and IVIr. Lupton pushed on board over the first 
gang-plank. But Kettle waved the man aside til] 
he saw his vessel finally moored. And then he took 
him into the chart-house and shut the door. 

“You seem to have got my cable,” he said. “It 
was a very expensive one, but I thought the occa- 
sion needed it.” 

His visitor -tapped Kettle confidentially on tli.e 
knee. “You’ll find my office will deal most liberally 
with you. Captain. But I can tell you I’m pretty 
excited to hear your full yarn.” 

“I’m afraid you won’t like it,” said Kettle. “The 
man’s obviously dead, and, fancy it or not, I don’t 
see how your office can avoid paying the full 
amount. However, here’s the way I’ve logged it 
down” — a.nd he went off into detailed narration. 

The New Orleans heat smote upon the chart-house 
roof, and the air outside clattered with the talk of 
negroes. Already hatches were off, and the winch 
chains sang as they struck out cargo, and from the 
levee alongside, and from New Orleans below and 
beyond, came tangles of smells which are peculiarly 
their own, A steward brought in tea, and it stood 


288 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


on the chart-table iintastcd, and at last Kettle 
finished, and Lupton put a question. 

“It’s easy to tell,” he said, “if they did swap 
names. What was the man that went overboard 
like?” 

“Little dark fellow, short sighted. He was a poet, 
too.” 

“That’s not Hamilton, anyway, but it might be 
Cranze. Is your prisoner tall?” 

“Tall and puffy. Red-haired and a spotty face.” 

“That’s Hamilton, all the wa^^ By Jove! Skipper, 
we’ve saved our bacon. His yarn’s quite true. They 
did change names. Hamilton’s a rich young ass 
that’s been painting England red these last three 
years.” 

“But, tell me, what did the little chap go over- 
board for?” 

“Got there himself. Uneasy conscience, I suppose. 
He seems to have been a poor sort of assassin 
anyway. Why, when that drunken fool tumbled 
overboard amongst the sharks, he didn’t leave him 
to be eaten or drowned, is more than I can under- 
stand. He’d have got his money as easy as picking 
it up off the floor, if he’d only had the sense to 
keep quiet.” 

“If you ask me,” said Kettle, “it was sheer nobil- 
ity of character. I had a good deal of talk with 
that young gentleman, sir. He was a splendid fel- 
low. He had a true poetical soul.” 

Mr. Lupton winked scepticall3^ “He managed to 
play the part of a thorough-paced young blackguard 
at home pretty successfully. He was warned off the 
turf. He was kicked out of his club for card-sharp- 
ing. He was well, he’s dead now, anyway, and 

we won’t say any more about him, except that he’s 


THE DEAR INSURED 


289 


been stone-broke these last three 3"ears, and has been 
living on his wits and helping to fleece other flats. 
But he was only the tool, anyway. There is a 
bigger and more capable scoundrel at the back of 
it all, and, thanks to the scare you seem to have 
rubbed into that spottj^-faced j^oung mug you’ve 
got locked up down below, I think we can get the 
principal by the heels very nicely this journey. If 
3^ou don’t mind. I’ll go and see this latest victim 
now, before he’s had time to get rid of his fright.” 

Captain Kettle showed his visitor courteously 
down to the temporar^^ jail, and then returned to 
the chart-house and sipped his tea. 

“His name may really have been Cranze, but he 
was a poet, poor lad,” he mused, thinking of the 
dead. “That’s why he couldn’t do the dirty work. 
But I sha’n’t tell Lupton that reason. He’d only 
laugh — and — that poetry ought to be a bit of a 
secret between the lad and me. Poor, poor fellow! 
I think I’ll be able to write a few lines about him 
myself after I’ve been ashore to see the agent, just 
as a bit of an epitaph. As to this spotty-faced 
waster who swapped names with him, I almost 
have it in me to wish we’d left him to be chopped 
by those sharks. He’d his money to his credit any- 
way — and what’s money compared with poetry?” 

19 


CHAPTER XII 


THE FIRE AND THE FARM 

The quartermaster knocked smartly, and came 
into the chart-house, and Captain Kettle’s eyes 
snapped open from deep sleep to complete wake- 
fulness. 

“There’s some sort of vessel on fire, sir, to loo’ard, 
about five miles off.” 

The shipmaster glanced up at the tell-tale com- 
pass above his head. “Officer of the watch has 
changed the course, I see. We’re heading for it, eh?” 

“Yes, sir. The second mate told me to say so.” 

“Quite right. Pass the word for the carpenter, 
and tell him to get port and starboard lifeboats 
ready for lowering in case they’re wanted. I’ll be 
on the bridge in a minute.” 

“Aye, aye, sir,” said the quartermaster, and with- 
drew into the darkness outside. 

Captain Owen Kettle’s toilet was not of long 
duration. Like most master mariners who do 
business along those crowded steam lanes of the 
Western Ocean, he slept in most of his clothes when 
at sea as a regular habit, and in fact only stripped 
completely for the few moments which were occu- 
pied by his morning’s tub. If needful, he could 
always go out on deck at a second’s notice, and 
be ready to remain there for twenty-four hours. 
But in this instance there was no immediate hurry, 
and so he spent a full minute and a half over his 
toilet, and emerged with washed hands and face, 


THE FIRE AND THE FARM 


291 


Sprucely brushed hair and beard, and his person 
attired in high rubber thigh-boots and leather- 
bound black oilskins. 

The night was black and thick with a drizzle of 
rain, and a heavy breeze snored through the Flamin- 
goes scanty rigging. The second mate on the bridge 
was beating his fingerless woollen gloves against 
his ribs as a cure for cold fingers. The first mate 
and the third had already turned out, and were 
on the boatskids helping the carpenter with the 
housings, and overhauling davit falls. On that 
part of the horizon against which the Flamingoes 
bows sawed with great sweeping dives was a 
streaky, flickering 3^ellow glow. 

Kettle went on to an end of the bridge and peered 
ahead through the bridge binoculars. “A steamer,” 
he commented, “and a big one too; and she’s finely 
ablaze. Not much help we shall be able to give. 
It will be a case of taking off the crew, if they 
aren’t already cooked before we get there.” He 
looked over the side at the eddy of water that 
clung to the ship’s flank. ‘T see you’re shoving her 
along,” he said to the second mate. 

“I sent word down to the engine-room to give her 
all they knew the moment we raised the glow. I 
thought you wouldn’t grudge the coal, sir.” 

“No, quite right. Hope there aren’t too many of 
them to be picked off, or we shall make a tight fit 
on board here.” 

“Funny we should be carrying the biggest cargo the 
old boat’s ever had packed into her. But we shall 
find room to house a few poor old sailormen. They 
won’t mind much where they stow, as long as 
they’re picked up out of the wet. B-r-r-rh!” shiv- 
ered the second mate, “I shouldn’t much fancy 


292 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


open-boat cruising in the Western Ocean this wea- 
ther.” 

Captain Kettle stared on through the shiny brass 
binoculars. “Call all hands,” he said quietly. 
“That’s a big ship ahead of us, and she’ll carry a 
lot of people. God send she’s only an old tramp. 
At those lifeboats there!” he shouted. “Swing the 
davits outboard, and pass your painters forward. 
Hump yourselves, now.” 

“There’s a lot of ice here, sir,” came a grumbling 
voice out of the darkness, “and the boats are frozen 
on to the chocks. We’ve got to hammer it away 
before the^^’ll hoist. The falls are that froze, too, 
that they’ll not render ” 

“You call yourself a mate and hold a master’s 
ticket, and want to get a ship of your own!” — 
Kettle vaulted over the rail on to the top of the 
fiddley, and made for his second in command. 
“Here, my man, if your delicate fingers can’t do 
this bit of a job, give me that marlinspike. By 
James! do you hear me? Give up the marlinspike. 
Did you never see a boat iced up before? Now then, 
carpenter. Are you worth your salt? Or am I to 
clear both ends in this boat by myself?” 

So, by example and tongue. Captain Kettle got 
his boats swung outboard, and the Flamingo^ with 
her engines working at an unusual strain, surged 
rapidly nearer and nearer to the blaze. 

On shore a house on fire at any hour draws a 
crowd. At sea, in the bleak cold wastes of the 
water desert, even one other shipload of sympa- 
thizers is too often wished for vainly. Wind, cold, 
and breakdowns of machinery the sailor accepts 
with dull indifference; shipwrecks, strandings, and 
disease he looks forward to as part of an inevita- 


THE FIRE AND THE FARM 


293 


ble fate; but fire goes nearer to cowing him than 
all other disasters put together; and the sight of 
his fellow-seamen attacked by these same desolating 
fiames arouses in him the warmest of his sympathy, 
and the full of his resourcefulness. Moreover, in 
Kettle’s case, he had known the feel of a ship afire 
under his own feet, and so he could appreciate all 
the better the agon^^ of these others. 

But meanwhile, as the Flamingo made her way 
up wind against the charging seas, a fear was 
beginning to grip the little shipmaster by the heart 
that was deep enough to cause him a physical nausea. 
The burning steamer ahead grew every minute more 
clear as they raced toward her. She was on fire 
forward, and she lay almost head-on toward them, 
keeping her stern to the seas, so that the wind 
would have no help in driving the flames aft, and 
making her more uninhabitable. 

From a distance it had been hard to make out any- 
thing beyond great stacks of yellow flame, topped by 
inky, oily smoke, which drove in thick columns down 
the wind. As they drew nearer, and her size became 
more apparent, some one guessed her as a big cargo 
tramp from New Orleans with cotton that had over- 
heated and fired, and Kettle took comfort from the 
suggestion and tried to believe that it might come true. 

But as they closed with her, and came within 
earshot of her syren, which was sending frightened 
useless blares across the churning waters, there was 
no being blind to the true facts any longer. This 
was no cargo boat, but a passenger liner ; outward 
bound, too, and populous. And as they came still 
nearer, they saw her after-decks black and wriggling 
with people, and Kettle got a glimpse of her struct- 
ure and recognized the vessel herself. 


294 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


“The Grosser Carl,'^ he muttered, “out of Ham- 
burg for New York. Next to no first-class, and she 
cuts rates for third and gets the bulk of the German 
emigrant traffic. She’ll have six hundred on her 
this minute, and a hundred of a crew. Call it 
seven hundred all told, and there’s hell waiting for 
them over yonder, and getting worse every minute. 
Oh, great James! I wonder what’s going to be 
done. I couldn’t pack seventy of them on the old 
Flam here, if I filled her to bursting.” 

He clapped the binoculars to his eyes again, and 
stared diligently round the rim of the night. If 
only he could catch a glimpse of some other liner 
hurrying along her route, then these people could 
be saved easily. He could drop his boats to take 
them till the other passenger ship came up. But 
the wide sea was empty of lights; the Flamingo 
and the Grosser Carl had the stage severely to them- 
selves; and between them they had the making of 
an intolerable weight of destiny. 

The second mate broke in upon his commander’s 
brooding. “We shall have a nice bill for Lloyds 
this journey.” 

Kettle made no answer. He continued staring 
moodily at the spouting flames ahead. The second 
mate coughed. “Shall I be getting derricks rigged 
and the hatch covers off?” 

Kettle turned on him with a sudden fierceness. 
“Do you know you’re asking me to ruin myself?.” 

“But if we jettison cargo to make room for 
these poor beggars, sir, the insurance will pay.” 

“Pay your grandmother. You’ve got a lot to 
learn, my lad, before you’re fit to take charge of a 
ship, if you don’t know any more than that about 
the responsibility of the cargo.” 


THE FIRE AND THE FARM 


295 


^‘By Jove! that’s awkward. Birds would look 
pretty blue if the bill was handed in to them.” 

“Birds!” said Kettle with contempt. “They 
aren’t liable- for sixpence. Supposing you were 
travelling by train, and there was some one else’s 
portmanteau in the carriage, and you flung it out 
of the window into a river, who do you suppose 
would have to stand the racket?” 

“Why, me. But then, sir, this is different.” 

“Not a bit. If we start in to jettison cargo, it 
means I’m a ruined man. Every ton that goes over 
the side I’ll have to pay for.” 

“We can’t leave those poor devils to frizzle,” said 
the second mate awkwardl3^. 

“Oh, no, of course we can’t. They’re a pack of 
unclean Dutchmen we never saw before, and should 
think ourselves too good to brush against if we 
met them in the street, but sentiment demands that 
we stay and pull them out of their mess, and cold 
necessity leaves me to foot the bill. You’re young, 
and you’re not married, my lad. I’m neither. I’ve 
worked like a horse all my life, mostly with bad 
luck. Lately luck’s turned a bit. I’ve been able to 
make a trifle more, and save a few pounds out of 
my billets. And here and there, what with salvage 
and other things, I’ve come in the way of a plum. 
One way and another I’ve got nearly enough put 
b3^ at home this minute to keep the missis and me 
and the girls to windward of the workhouse, even 
if I lost this present job with Birds, and didn’t find 
another.” 

“Perhaps somebody else will pay for the cargo 
we have to put over the side, sir.” 

“It’s pretty thin comfort when you’ve got a ‘per- 
haps’ of that size, and no other mortal stop between 


296 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


you and the workhouse. It’s all very well doing 
these things in hot blood ; but the reekoning’s paid 
when you’re cold, and they’re cold, and with the 
Board of Trade standing-by like the devil in the 
background all ready to give you a kick when 
there’s a spare place for a fresh foot.” He slammed 
down the handle of the bridge-telegraph, and rang 
off the PVamingo’s engines. He had been measuring 
distances all this time with liis eye. 

“But, of course, there’s no other choice about the 
matter. There’s the blessed cause of humanity to 
be looked after — humanity to these blessed Dutch 
emigrants that their own country doesn’t want, 
and every other country would rather be wdthout. 
Humanity to my poor old missis and the kids 
doesn’t count. I shall get a sludgy paragraph in 
the papers for the Grosser Carl, headed ‘Gallant 
Rescue,’ with all the facts put upside down, and 
twelve months later there’ll be another paragraph 
about a ‘case of pitiful destitution.’ ” 

“Oh, I say, sir, it won’t be as bad as all that. 
Birds will see you through.” 

“Birds will do a fat lot. Birds sent me to work 
up a connection in the Mexican Gulf, and I’ve done 
it, and they’ve raised my screw two pound a month 
after four years’ service. I jettison the customers’ 
cargo, and probably sha’n’t be able to pay for half 
of it. Customers will get mad, and give their busi- 
ness to other lines which don’t run foul of blazing 
emigrant packets.” 

“Birds would never dare to fire you out for 
that.” 

“Oh, Lord, no! They’d say: ‘We don’t like the 
way you’ve taken to wear your back hair. Captain. 
And, besides, we want j^ounger blood amongst our 


THE FIRE AND THE FARM 


297 


skippers. You’ll find your check ready for you in 
the outer office. Mind the step!’ ” 

“I’m awfully sorry, Skipper. If there’s anything 
I can do, sir ” 

Captain Kettle sighed, and looked drearily out at 
the blazing ship and the tumbled waste of sea on 
which she floated. But he felt that he had been 
showing weakness, and pulled himself together again 
smartl3^ “Yes, there is, m3Mad. I’m a disappointed 
man, and I’ve been talking a lot more than’s digni- 
fied. You’ll do me a real kindness if you’ll forget all 
that’s been said. Away with you on to the main 
deck, and get hatches off, and whip the top tier of 
that cargo over the side as fast as you can make 
the winches travel. If the old Plamingo is going 
to serve out free hospitality, by James! she shall 
do it full weight. By James! I’d give the beggars 
champagne and spring mattresses if I’d got ’em.” 

Meanwhile, those on the German emigrant steamer 
had seen the coming of the shabby little English 
trader with bumping hearts. Till then the crew, 
with (so to speak) their backs up against a wall, 
had fought the fire with diligence; but when the 
nearness of a potential rescuer was reported, they 
discovered for themselves at once that the fire was 
be^^ond control. The^^ were joined by the stoke- 
hold gangs, and the^" made at once for the boats, 
overpowering any officer who happened to come be- 
tween them and their desires. The limp, tottery, 
half-fed, wholly seasick emigrants they easily shoved 
aside, and these in their turn by sheer mass thrust 
back the small handful of first-class passengers, and 
away screamed out the davit tackles, as the boats 
were lowered full of madly frightened deck hands 
and grimy handlers of coal. 


298 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


Panic had sapped every trace of their manhood. 
They had concern only for their own skins ; for the 
miserables remaining on the Grosser Carl they had 
none. And if for a minute any of them permitted 
himself to think, he decided that in the Herr Gott’s 
good time the English would send boats and fetch 
them off. The English had always a special gusto 
for this meddling rescue work. 

However, it is easj^ to decide on lowering boats, 
but not alwa3^s so eas^^ to carry it into safe fact 
if you are mad with scare, and there is no one 
whom you will listen to to give the necessary simple 
orders. And, as a consequence, one boat, chiefly 
manned by the coal interest, swamped alongside 
before it could be shoved clear; the forward davit 
fall of another jammed, and let it dangle vertically 
up and down when the after fall overhauled ; and 
only one boat got away clear. 

The reception which this small cargo of worthies 
met with surprised them. They pulled with terrified 
haste to the Flamingo^ got under her lee, and clung 
desperately to the line which was thrown to them. 
But to the rail above them came the man who 
expected to be ruined by this night’s work, and the 
pearls of speech which fell from his lips went home 
through even their thick hides. 

Captain Kettle, being human, had greatly needed 
some one during the last half-hour to ease his feel- 
ings on — though he was not the man to own up to 
such a weakness, even to himself— and the boat came 
neatly to supply his want. It was long enough 
since he had found occasion for such an outburst, 
but the perfection of his early training stood him 
in good stead then. Every biting insult in his vo- 
cabulary, every lashing word that is used upon 


THE FIRE AND THE FARM 


299 


the seas, every gibe, national, personal, or profes- 
sional, that a lifetime of hard language could teach, 
he poured out on that shivering boat’s crew then. 

They were Germans certainlj^, but being an Eng- 
lish shipmaster, he had, of course, many a time 
sailed with a forecastle filled with their nationalitj-, 
and had acquired the special art of adapting his 
abuse to the “Dutchman’s” sensibilities, even as he 
had other harangues suited for Coolie or Dago 
mariners, or even for that rare sea-bird, the English 
sailorman. And as a final wind-up, after having 
made them writhe sufficiently, he ordered them to 
go back whence they came, and take a share in 
rescuing their fellows. 

“Bud we shall trown,” shouted back one speaker 
from the wildly jumping boat. 

“Then drown, and be hanged to you,” shouted 
Kettle. “I’m sure I don’t care if you do. But I’m 
not going to have cowards like you dirtying m3^ 
deck-planks.” He cast off the line to which their 
boat rode under the steamer’s heaving side. “You 
go and do \^our whack at getting the people off 
that packet, or, so help me James! none of you shall 
ever see 3"Our happy Dutchland again.” 

Meanwhile, so the irony of the fates ordered it, the 
two mates, each in charge of one of the Flamingo's 
lifeboats, were commanding crews made up entirely 
of Germans and Scandinavians, and pluckier and 
more careful sailormen could not have been wished 
for. The work was dangerous, and required more 
than ordinary nerve and endurance and skill. A 
heavy sea ran, and from its crests a spindrift blew 
which cut the face like whips, and numbed all parts 
of the body with its chill. The boats were tossed 
about like pla3rthings, and required constant bailing 


300 


\ MASTER OF FORTUNE 


to keep them from being waterlogged. But Kettle 
had brought the Flamingo to windward of the 
Grosser Carl, and each boat carried a line, so that 
the steam winches could help her with the return 
trips. 

Getting a cargo was, however, the chief difficulty. 
All attempt at killing the fire was given up by this 
time. All vestige of order was swamped in unutter- 
able panic. The people on board had given them- 
selves up to wild, uncontrollable anarchy. If a boat 
had been brought alongside, they would have tum- 
bled into her like sheep, till their numbers swamped 
her. They cursed the flames, cursed the sea, cursed 
their own brothers and sisters who jostled them. 
They were the sweepings from half-fed middle Eu- 
rope, bom with raw nerves; and under the sudden 
stress of danger, and the absence of some strong 
man to thmst discipline on them, they became prac- 
tically maniacs. They were beyond speech, many 
of them. The3^ yammered at the boats which came 
to their relief, with noises like those of scared 
beasts. 

Now the Flamingoes boats were officered by two 
cool, profane mates, who had no nerves themselves, 
and did not see the use of nerves in other people. 
Neither of them spoke German, but (after the style 
of their island) presuming that some of those who 
listened would understand English, they made proc- 
lamation in their own tongue to the effect that the 
women were to be taken off first. 

“Kids with them,” added the second mate. 

“And if any of you rats of men shove your way 
down here,” said the chief mate, “before all the 
skirt is ferried across, you’ll get knocked on the 
head, that’s all. Savvy that belaying-pin I got in 


THE FIRE AND THE FARM 


301 


my fist? Now then, get some bowlines, and sway 
out the ladies.” 

As well might the order have been addressed to 
a flock of sheep. They heard what was said in 
an agonized silence. Then each poor soul there 
stretched out his arms or hers, and clamored to be 
saved — and — never mind the rest. And meanwhile 
the flames bit deeper and deeper into the fabric of 
the steamer, and the breath of them grew more 
searching, as the roaring gale blew them into 
strength. 

“Yon ruddy Dutchmen,” shouted the second mate. 
“It would serve you blooming well right if you 
were left to be frizzled up into one big sausage stew 
together. However, we’ll see if kindness can’t tame 
3^ou a bit yet.” He waited till the swirl of a sea 
swung his boat under one of the dangling davit 
falls, and caught hold of it, and climbed nimbly on 
board. Then he proceeded to clear a space by the 
primitive method of crashing his fist into every face 
within reach. 

“Now then,” he shouted, “if there are any sailor- 
men here worth their salt, let them come and help. 
Am I to break up the whole of this ship’s company 
by myself?” 

Gradually, by ones and twos, the Grosser CarPs 
remaining officers and deck hands came shamefacedly 
toward this new nucleus of authority and order, 
and then the real work began. The emigrants, with 
sea sights and sea usage new to them, were still 
full of the unreasoning panic of cattle, and like cattle 
they were herded and handled, and their women and 
young cut out from the general mob. These last 
were got into the swa3dng, dancing boats as ten- 
derly as might be, and the men were bidden to watch, 


302 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


and wait their turn. When they grew restive, as the 
seorehing fire drew more near, they were beaten 
savagely; the Grosser CarTs crew, with the shame 
of their own panic still raw on them, knew no 
mercy; and the second mate of the Flamingo^ who 
stood against a davit, insulted them all with impar- 
tial cheerfulness. He was a very apt pupil, this 
young man, of that master of ruling men at the 
expense of their feelings, Captain Owen Kettle. 

Meanwhile the two lifeboats took one risky jour- 
ney after another, being drawn up to their own 
ship by a chattering winch, discharging their drag- 
gled freight with dexterit3^ and little ceremony, and 
then laboring back under oars for another. The 
light of the burning steamer turned a great sphere 
of night into day, and the heat from her made the 
sweat pour down the faces of the toiling men, 
though the gale still roared, and the icy spindrift 
still whipped and stung. On the Flamingo ^ Captain 
Kettle cast into the sea with a free hand what 
represented the savings of a lifetime, provision for 
his wife and children, and an old-age pension for 
himself. 

The Grosser Carl had carried thirty first-class 
passengers, and these were crammed into the Flamin- 
goes slender cabin accommodation, filling it to over- 
flowing. The emigrants — Austrians, Bohemians, 
wild Poles, filthy, crawling Russian Jews, bestial 
Armenians, human debris which even soldier-coveting 
Middle Europe rejected — these were herded down 
into the holds, as rich cargo was dug out by the 
straining winches, and given to the thankless sea 
to make space for them. 

“Kindly walk up,” said Kettle, with bitter hospi- 
tality, as fresh flocks of them were heaved up over 


THE FIRE AND THE FARM 


303 


the bulwarks. “Don’t hesitate to grumble if the 
accommodation isn’t exactly to your liking. We’re 
most pleased to strike out cargo to provide you 
with an elegant parlor, and what’s left I’m sure 
you’ll be able to sit on and spoil. Oh, you filthy, 
long-haired cattle! Did none of you ever wash?” 

Fiercely the Grosser Carl burned to the fanning 
of the gale, and like furies worked the men in the 
boats. The Grosser Carl's own boat joined the 
other two, once the ferrying was well under way. 
She had hung alongside after Kettle cast off her 
line, with her people madly clamoring to be taken 
on board; but as all they received for their pains 
was abuse and coal-lumps — mostly, by the way, 
from their own fellow-countrymen, who made up 
the majority of the Flamingo's crew — they were 
presently driven to help in the salving work through 
sheer scare at being left behind to drown unless 
they carried out the fierce little English Captain’s 
orders. 

The Flamingo's chief mate oversaw the dangerous 
ferrying, and though every soul that was trans- 
shipped might be said to have had ten narrow 
escapes in transit over that piece of tossing water, 
luck and good seamanship carried the day, and none 
was lost. And on the Grosser Carl the second mate, 
a stronger man, brazenly took entire command, and 
commended to the nether gods all who suggested 
ousting him from that position. “I don’t care a 
red what your official post was on this ship before 
I came,” said the second mate to several indignant 
officers. “You should have held on to it when you 
had it. I’ve never been a skipper before, but I’m 
skipper here now by sheer right of conquest, and 
I’m going to stay on at that till the blooming old 


304 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


ship’s burnt out. If you bother me, I’ll knock your 
silly nose into your watch-pocket. Turn-to there 
and pass down another batch of those squalling 
passengers into the boats. Don’t you spill any of 
them overboard either, or, by the Big Mischief, I’ll 
just step down and teach you handiness.” 

The second mate was almost fainting with the 
heat before he left the Grosser Carl, but he insisted 
on being the last man on board, and then guyed the 
whole performance with caustic gayety when he was 
dragged out of the water, into which he had been 
forced to jump, and was set to drain on the floor 
gratings of a boat. 

The Grosser Carl had fallen away before the wind, 
and was spouting flame from stem-head to poop- 
staff by the time the last of the rescuers and the 
rescued were put on the Flamingo's deck, and on 
that travel-worn steamboat were some six hundred 
and fifty visitors that somehow or other had to be 
provided for. 

The detail of famine now became of next im- 
portance. They were still five days’ steam away 
from port, and their official provision supply was 
only calculated to last the Flamingos themselves for 
a little over that time. Things are cut pretty fine 
in these days of steam voyages to scheduled time. 
So there was no sentimental waiting to see the 
Grosser Carl finally burn out and sink. The boats 
were cast adrift, as the crews were too exhausted 
to hoist them in, and the Flamingo' s nose was 
turned toward Liverpool. Pratt, the chief engineer, 
figured out to half a ton what coal he had remain- 
ing, and set the pace so as to run in with empty 
bunkers. They were cool now, all hands, from the 
excitement of the burning ship, and the objection- 


THE FIRE AND THE FARM 


305 


able prospect of semi-starvation made them regard 
their visitors less than ever in the light of men and 
brothers. 

But, as it chanced, toward the evening of next 
day, a hurrying ocean greyhound overtook them in 
her race from New York toward the East, and the 
bunting talked out long sentences in the commercial 
code from the wire span between the Flamingo' s 
masts. Fresh quartettes of flags flicked up on both 
steamers, were acknowledged, and were replaced b3^ 
others; and when the liner drew up alongside, and 
stopped with reversed propellers, she had a loaded 
boat ready swung out in davits, which dropped in 
the water the moment she had lost her way. The 
bunting had told the pith of the tale. 

When the two steamers’ bridges were level, the 
liner’s captain touched his cap, and a crowd of well- 
dressed passengers below him listened wonderingly. 
“Afternoon, Captain. Got ’em all?” 

“Afternoon, Captain. Oh, we didn’t lose any. 
But a few drowned their silly selves before we started 
to shepherd them.” 

“What ship was it? The French boat would be 
hardly due yet.” 

“No, the old Grosser Carl. She was astern of 
her time. Much obliged to you for the grub. Cap- 
tain. We’d have been pretty hard pushed if we 
hadn’t met you. I’m sending you a payment order. 
Sorry for spoiling your passage.” 

The liner captain looked at his watch. 

“Can’t be helped. It’s in a good cause, I suppose, 
though the mischief of it is we were trying to pull 
down the record by an hour or so. The boat, there ! 
Are you going to be all night with that bit of 
stuflf?” 


20 


306 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


The cases of food were transshipped with frantic 
haste, and the boat returned. The greyhound leaped 
out into her stride again the moment she had 
hooked on, and shot ahead, dipping a smart blue 
ensign in salute. The Flamingo dipped a dirty red 
ensign and followed, and, before dark fell, once more 
had the ocean to herself 

The voyage home was not one of oppressive gay- 
et3". The first-class passengers, who were crammed 
into the narrow cabin found the quarters uncom- 
fortable, and the little shipmaster’s manner repel- 
lent. Urged by the precedent in such matters, 
they “made a purse” for him, and a presentation 
address. But as they merely collected some thirty- 
one pounds in paper promises, which, so far, have 
never been paid, their gratitude may be said to 
have had its economical side. 

To the riffraff in the hold, for whose accommoda- 
tion a poor man’s fortune had been jettisoned, the 
thing “gratitude” was an unknown emotion. They 
plotted mischief amongst themselves, stole when the 
opportunity came to them, were unspeakably foul 
in their habits, and, when they gave the matter any 
consideration at all, decided that this fierce little 
captain with the red torpedo beard had taken them 
on board merely to fulfil some selfish purpose of his 
own. To the theorist who has sampled them only 
from a distance, these off-scourings of Middle Europe 
are downtrodden people with souls; to those who 
happen to know them personally, all their qualities 
seem to be conspicuously negative. 

The Flamingo picked up the landmarks of the 
Southern Irish coast, and made her number to 
Lloyd’s station on Brow Head, stood across for the 
Tuskar, and so on up St. George’s Channel for Holy- 


THE FIRE AND THE FARM 


307 


head. She flew a pilot jaek there, and off Point 
Lynns picked up a pilot, who, after the custom of 
his class, stepped up over the side with a hard felt 
hat on his head, and a complete wardrobe, and a 
selection of daily papers in his pocket. 

“Well, pilot, what’s the news ?” said Kettle, as 
the man of narrow waters swung himself up on to 
the bridge, and his boat swirled away astern. 

“You are,” said the pilot. “The papers are just 
full of you. Captain, all of them, from the Shipping 
Telegraph to the London Times. The Cunard boat 
brought in the yarn. A pilot out of my schooner 
took her up.” 

“How do they spell the name? Cuttle?” 

“Well, I think it’s ‘Kattle’ mostly, though one 
paper has it ‘Kelly.’ ” 

“Curse their cheek,” said the little sailor, flushing. 
“I’d like to get hold of some of those blowsy edi- 
tors that come smelling round the dock after yarns 
and drink, and wring their necks.” 

“Starboard a point,” said the pilot, and when the 
quartermaster at the wheel had duly repeated the 
course, he turned to Kettle with some amusement. 
“Blowsy or not, they don’t seem to have done you 
much harm this journey. Captain. Why, they’re 
getting up subscriptions for you allround. Shouldn’t 
wonder but what the Board of Trade even stands 
you a pair of binoculars.” 

“I’m not a blessed mendicant,” said Kettle stiffly, 
“and as for the Board of Trade, they can stick their 
binoculars up their trousers.” He walked to the 
other end of the bridge, and stood there chewing 
savagely at the butt end of his cigar. 

“Rum bloke,” commented the pilot to himself, 
though aloud he offered no comment, being a man 


308 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


whose business it was to keep on good terms with 
everybody. So he dropped his newspapers to one 
of the mates, and applied himself to the details of 
the pilotage. 

Still, the pilot was right in saying that England 
was ringing with the news of Kettle’s feat. The 
passengers of the Cunarder, with nothing much else 
to interest them, had come home thrilled and ring- 
ing with it. A smart New Yorker had got a “scoop” 
by slipping ashore at Queenstown and cabling a 
lavish account to the American Press Association, 
so that the first news reached London from the 
States. Followed Reuter’s man and the Liver- 
pool reporters on Prince’s landing-stage, who came 
to glean copy as in the ordinary course of events, 
and they being spurred on by wires from Lon- 
don for full details, got down all the facts avail- 
able, and imagined others. Parliament was not 
sitting, and there had been no newspaper sensa- 
tion for a week, and, as a natural consequence, the 
papers came out next morning with accounts of 
the rescue varying from two columns to a page in 
length. 

It is one of the most wonderful attributes of the 
modern Press that it can, at any time between 
midnight and publishing hours, collate and elaborate 
the biography of a man who hitherto has been en- 
tirely obscure, and considering the speed of the 
work, and the difficulties which hedge it in, these 
lightning life sketches are often surprisingly full 
of accuracies. But let the frillings in this case 
be fact or fiction, there was no doubt that Kettle 
and his crew had saved a shipload of panic- 
stricken foreign emigrants, and (to help point the 
moral) within the year, in an almost similar case. 



STRANGERS CAME UP AND WRUNG KETTLE’S UNWILLING HAND. 


[Pafle 309 , 




THE FIRE AND THE FARM 


309 


another shipload had been drowned through that 
same blind, helpless, hopeless panie. The pride of 
raee bubbled through the British Daily Press in 
prosaie long primer and double-leaded bourgeois. 
There was no saying aloud, ‘‘We rejoiee that an 
Englishman has done this thing, after having it 
proved to us that it was above the foreigner’s 
strength.” The newspaper man does not rhapso- 
dize. But the sentiment was there all the same, 
and it was that whieh actuated the sudden wave 
of enthusiasm which thrilled the country. 

The Flamingo was worked into dock, and a cheer- 
ing crowd surged aboard of her in unrestrainable 
thousands. Strangers came up and wrung Kettle’s 
unwilling hand, and dropped tears on his coat-sleeve ; 
and when he swore at them, they only wept the 
more and smiled through the drops. It was mag- 
nificent, splendid, gorgeous. Here was a man! 
Who said that England would ever lose her proud 
place among the nations when she could still find 
men like Oliver Kelly — or Kattle — or Cuttle, or what- 
ever this man was called, amongst her obscure 
merchant captains? 

Even Mr. Isaac Bird, managing owner, caught 
some of the general enthusiasm, and withheld, for 
the present, the unpleasant remarks which occurred 
to him as suitable, touching Kettle’s neglect of the 
firm’s interest in favor of a parcel of bankrupt 
foreigners. But Kettle himself had the subject well 
in mind. When all this absurd fuss was over, then 
would come the reckoning; and whilst the crowd 
was cheering him, he was figuring out the value of 
the jettisoned cargo, and whilst pompous Mr. Isaac 
was shaking him by the hand and making a neat 
speech for the ear of casual reporters, poor Kettle 


310 


A MAvSTER OF FORTUNE 


was conjuring up visions of the workhouse and 
pauper’s eorduroy. 

But the Fates were moving now in a manner 
whieh was beyond his experience. The public, which 
had ignored his bare existence before for all of a 
lifetime, suddenly diseovered that he was a hero, 
and that, too, without knowing half the facts. 
The Press, with its finger on the publie’s pulse, 
published Kettle literature in lavish columns. It 
gave twenty different “e3^e- witnesses’ aceounts” of 
the rescue. It gave long lists of “previous similar 
disasters.” It drew long morals in leading articles. 
And finally, it took all the little man’s affairs under 
its consideration, and settled them with a lordly 
hand. 

“Who pays for the cargo Captain Kuttle threw 
overboard?” one paper headed an artiele; whilst 
another wrote perfervidly about “Cattle ruined for 
his braver3^” Here was a new and striking side 
issue. Lloyds’ were not responsible. Should the 
week’s hero pay the bill himself out of his miserable 
savings? Certainly not. The owners of the Grosser 
Carl were the benefiting parties, and it was only 
just that they should take up the expense. So the 
entire Press wired off to the German firm, and next 
morning were able to publish a positive assuranee 
that of course these grateful foreigners would reim- 
burse all possible outlay. 

The subject of finance onee broached, it was natu- 
rally discovered that the hero toiled for a very 
meagre pittance, that he was getting on in years, 
and had a wife and family depending on him — and — 
promptly, there opened out the subscription lists. 
People were stirred, and they gave nicely, on the 
lower scale certainly, with shillings and guineas 


THE FIRE AND THE FARM 


311 


predominating; but the lists totalled up to £2,400, 
whieh to some people, of eourse, is gilded affluenee. 

Now Captain Kettle had endured all this publicity 
with a good deal of restiveness, and had used lan- 
guage to one or two interviewers who managed to 
ferret him out, which fairly startled them ; but this 
last move for a public subscription made him furious. 
He spoke in the captain’s room of the hostelry he 
used, of the degradation which was put on him, and 
various other master mariners who were present 
entirely agreed with him. “I might be a blessed 
missionary, or India- with-a-famine, the way they’re 
treating me,” he complained bitterly. “If they call 
a meeting to give me anything. I’ll chuck the money 
in their faces, and let them know straight what I 
think. By James! do they suppose I’ve got no 
pride? Why can’t they let me alone? If the Grosser 
Carl people pay up for that cargo, that’s all I want.” 

But the eternal healer. Time, soothed matters 
down wonderfully. Captain Owen Kettle’s week’s 
outing in the daily papers ran its course with due 
thrills and headlines, and then the Press forgot him, 
and rushed on to the next sensation. By the time 
the subscription list had closed and been brought 
together, the Flamingo had sailed for her next slow 
round trip in the Mexican Gulf, and when her cap- 
tain returned to find a curt, formal letter from a 
firm of bankers, stating that £2,400 had been placed 
to his credit in their establishment, he would have 
been more than human if he had refused it. And, 
as a point of fact, after consulting with Madam, his 
wife, he transformed it into houses in that terrace 
of narrow dwellings in Birkenhead which represented 
the rest of his savings. 

Now on paper this house property was alleged by 


312 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


a sanguine agent to produce at the rate of £15 per 
annum apiece, and as there were thirty-six houses, 
this made an income — on paper — of well over £500 
a year, the which is a very nice possession. 

A thing, moreover, which Captain Kettle had 
prophesied had come to pass. The “trade connection” 
in the Mexican Gulf had been very seriously damaged. 
As was somewhat natural, the commercial gentry 
there did not relish having their valuable cargo 
pitched unceremoniously to Neptune, and preferred 
to send what they had by boats which did not 
contrive to meet burning emigrant liners. This, of 
course, was quite unreasonable of them, but one can 
only relate what happened. 

And then the second part of the prophecy evolved 
itself naturally. Messrs. Bird discovered from the 
last indent handed them that more paint had been 
used over the Flamingo^ s fabric than they thought 
consistent with economy, and so they relieved Cap* 
tain Kettle from the command, handed him ‘their 
check for wages due — there was no commission to 
be added for such an unsatisfactory voyage as this 
last — and presented him gratis with their best wishes 
for his future welfare. 

Kettle had thought of telling the truth in print, 
but the mysterious law of libel, which it is written 
that all mariners shall dread and never understand, 
scared him; and besides, he was still raw from his 
recent week’s outing in the British Press. So he 
just went and gave his views to Mr. Isaac Bird per- 
sonally and privately, threw the ink-bottle through 
the office window, pitched the box of business cigars 
into the fire, and generally pointed his remarks in 
a way that went straight to Mr. Bird’s heart, and 
then prepared peacefully to take his departure. 


THE FIRE AND THE FARM 


313 


“I shall not prosecute you for this ” said Mr. 

Isaac. 

“I wish you dare. It would suit me finely to get 
into a police-court and be able to talk. I’d willingly 
pay my ‘forty shillings and’ for the chance. They’d 
give me the option fast enough.” 

“I say I shall not prosecute you because I have 
no time to bother with law. But I shall send your 
name round amongst the shipowners, and with my 
word against you, you’ll never get another com- 
mand so long as the world stands.” 

‘‘You knock-kneed little Jew,” said Kettle trucu- 
lently, “do you think I’m giving myself the luxury 
of letting out at a shipowner, after knuckling down 
to the breed through all of a weary life, unless I 
knew my ground? I’ve done with ships and the sea 
for always, and if you give me any more of your 
lip. I’ll burn your office down and you in it.” 

“You seem pleased enough with yourself about 
something,” said Mr. Isaac. 

“I am,” said Kettle exultantly. “I’ve chucked the 
sea for good. I’ve taken a farm in Wharfedale, and 
I’m going to it this very week.” 

“Then,” said Mr. Isaac sardonically, “if you’ve 
taken a farm, don’t let me wish you any further ill. 
Good-morning. ’ ’ 

But Kettle was not to be damped out of conceit 
with his life’s desire by a few ill-natured words. 
He gave Mr. Isaac Bird his final blessing, comment- 
ing on his ancestors, his personal appearance, his 
prospects of final salvation, and then pleasantly 
took his leave. He was too much occupied in the 
preliminaries of his new life to have much leisure 
just then for further cultivation of the gentle art of 
insult. 


314 


A MASTER OF FORTUNE 


The farm he had rented lay in the Wharfe Valley 
above Skipton, and, though its aereage was large, 
a good deal was made up of mere moorland sheep 
pasture. Luekily he reeognized that a poetieal taste 
for a rural life might not neeessarily imply the 
whole mystery of stoek rearing and agrieulture, and 
so he hired a eapable foreman as philosopher and 
guide. And here I may say that his hobby by no 
means ruined him, as might reasonably be expected ; 
for in the worst years he never dropped more than 
fifty or sixty pounds, and frequently he ran the 
place without loss, or even at a profit. 

But though it is hard to confess that a man’s 
ideal comes short of his expectations when put to 
the trial, I am free to confess that although he 
enjoyed it all. Kettle was not at his happiest when 
he was attending his crops or his sheep, or haggling 
with his fellow farmers on Mondays over fat beasts 
in Skipton market. 

He had gone back to one of his more practiced 
tastes — if one calls it a taste — the cultivation of 
religion. The farm stood bleak and lonely on the 
slope of a hillside, and on both flanks of the dale 
were other lonely farms as far as the eye could see. 
There was no village. The nearest place of worship 
was four miles away, and that was merely a church. 
But in the valley beside the Wharfe was a small 
gray stone chapel, reared during some bygone day 
for the devotions of some forgotten sect. Kettle got 
this into his control. 

He was by no means a rich man. The row of 
houses in Birkenhead were for the most part ten- 
anted by the wives of mercantile marine engineers 
and officers, who were chronically laggard with 
their rent, and whom esprit de corps forbade him 


THE FIRE AND THE FARM 


315 


to press ; and so, what with this deficit, and repairs 
and taxes, and one thing and another, it was rarely 
that half the projected £500 a year found its way 
into his banking account. But a tithe of whatever 
accrued to him was scrupulously set aside for the 
maintenance of the chapel. 

He imported there the grim, narrow creed he had 
learned in South Shields, and threw open the door 
for congregations. He was entirely in earnest over 
it all, and vastly serious. Failing another minister, 
he himself took the services, and though, on occa- 
sion, some other brother was induced to preach, it 
was he himself who usually mounted the pulpit be- 
neath the sounding-board. He purchased an Ameri- 
can organ, and sent his eldest daughter weekly to 
take lessons in Skipton till she could play it. And 
Mrs. Kettle herself led the singing. 

Still further, the chapel has its own collection of 
hymns, specially written, printed and dedicated to 
its service. The book is Captain Kettle’s first pub- 
lished effort. Heaven and its author alone know 
under what wild circumstances most of those hymns 
were written. 

The chapel started its new span of life with a 
congregation meagre enough, but Sunday by Sun- 
day the number grew. They are mostly Noncon- 
formists in the dales, and when once a man acquires 
a taste for dissent, he takes a sad delight in sam- 
pling his neighbors’ variations of creed. Some came 
once and were not seen again. Others came and 
returned. They felt that this was the loneliest of all 
modern creeds; indeed. Kettle preached as much, 
and one can take a melancholy pride in splendid 
isolation. 

I am not sure that Captain Kettle does not find 


316 


A MASTER OP FORTUNE 


the restfulness of his present life a trifle too aceen- 
tuated at times, though this is only inevitable for 
one who has been so mueh a man of aetion. But 
at any rate he never makes eomplaint. He is a 
strong man, and he governs himself even as he 
governs his family and the ehapel eirele, with a 
strong, just hand. The farm is a model of neatness 
and order; paint is lavished in a way that makes 
dalesmen lift their eyebrows ; and the routine of the 
household is as striet as that of a ship. 

The house is unique, too, in Wharfedale for the 
variety of its contents. Desperately poor though 
Kettle might be on many of his returns from his 
unsuccessful ventures, he never came back to his wife 
without some present from a foreign clime as a 
tangible proof of his remembrance, and because these 
were usually mere curiosities, without intrinsic value, 
they often evaded the pawn-shop in those years of 
dire distress, when more negotiable articles passed 
irretrievably away from the family possession. And 
with them too, in stiff, decorous frames, are those 
certificates and testimonials which a master mariner 
always collects, together with photographs of gra- 
tuitously small general interest. 

But one might turn the house upside down with- 
out finding so carnal an instrument as a revolver, 
and when I suggested to Kettle once that we might 
go outside and have a little pistol practice, he 
glared at me, and I thought he would have sworn. 
However, he let me know stiffly enough that what- 
ever circumstances might have made him at sea, he 
had always been a very different man ashore in 
England, and there the matter dropped. 

But speaking of mementoes, there is one link with 
the past that Mrs. Kettle, poor woman, never ceases 


THE FIRE AND THE FARM 


317 


to regret the loss of. “Sueh a beautiful gold 
watch,” she says it was too, “with the Emperor’s 
and the Captain’s names engraved together on the 
back, and just a nice mention of the Gross of Carlf' 
As it happened, I saw the letter with which it was 
returned. It ran like this: — 

To His Majesty the German Emperor ^ 

Berlin , S.S. Flamingo , ’ ’ 

Germany. Liverpool. 

Sir, 

I am in receipt of watch sent by your agent, the 
German ambassador in London, which I return here- 
with. It is not my custom to accept presents from 
people I don^t know, especially if I have talked about 
them. I have talked about you, not liking several 
things youWe done, especially telegraphing about 
Dr. Jameson. Sir, you should remember that man 
was down when you sent your wire and couldn't 
hit back. Some of the things I have said about 
German deck hands you needn't take too much notice 
about. They aren't so bad as they might be if 
properly handled. But they want handling. Like- 
wise learning English. 

My wife wants to keep your photo, so I send you 
one of hers in return, so there shall be no robbery. 
She has written her name over it, same as yours. 

Yours truly, 

O. Kettle {Master). 


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tion ; a true romance, which has about it a quality of real life. 
It is a dramatic tale equal in many respects to the “ Prisoner 
of Zenda,” and fully as interesting. Cloth bound, gilt top. 1.50 


THE WHITE DEVIL OF VERDE. 

By Lucie France Pierce. This is a story of pure love and 
stirring action. It is crisp, bright, often thrilling and is ex- 
ceptionally well-written, the style is clear, and the plot dis- 
tinctly life-like. There is not a character introduced that does 
not make an immediate and successful appeal to the imagina- 
tion of the reader. It is a delightful tale of Western life. 
Cloth bound. ....... 1.25 

TRUE DETECTIVE STORIES. 

From the Pinkerton Archives. By Cleveland Moffett. The 
absorbing stories told here by Mr. Moffett are statements of 
actual facts repeated without exaggeration or false coloring. 
The author, by the help of the Pinkerton Agency, has given 
the inside history of famous cases which the general public 
only know of through newspaper accounts. Cloth bound. .75 

THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ARTEMUS WARD. 

(Charles Farrar Browne.) 

With a biographical sketch of the author by Melville D. Lan- 
DON. The present edition is of a work which has been for 
more than thirty years prominently before the public, and 
which may justly be said to have maintained a standard char- 
acter. It is issued because of a demand for a better edition 
than has ever been published. 

In order to supply this acknowledged want, the publishers have 
enlarged and perfected this edition by adding some matter 
not heretofore published in book form. 

A large i2mo. printed from new electro plates, with 28 full page 
illustrations, and Photogravure Portrait of the author, hand- 
somely bound in cloth, gilt top. .... 2.00 

AN AMERICAN CITIZEN. 

By Madeleine Lucette Ryley. The fact that the play of “ An 
American Citizen ” has had the most successful run of any 
modern drama should guarantee a wide sale of this book. The 
talented and successful writer has displayed a wonderful skill 
in developing the plot, all the outlines of the play are artis- 
tically rounded into a complete novel, which the reader will 
find intensely interesting from the first line to the end. Cloth 
bound. ........ 1.50 


THE MAN WHO DARED. 

By John P. Ritter. Mr. Ritter has achieved a work of rare 
interest. It is a great historical picture of the time of Robes- 
pierre, in which fact and fancy are welded together in a fine 
realization of the spirit of the times. It has all the elements 
of a genuine romance, and is an unusually fascinating his- 
torical romance. Illustrated. Cloth bound, gilt top. i.2g 


THE DAY OF TEMPTATION. 

By Wm. Le Queux. This is one of this author’s best stories. 
It is thrilling and realistic, and bears out a mystery which 
carries thej reader through a labyrinth of strange experiences. 
Cloth bound. ....... 1.50 


THE STOHY OF THE ROUGH RIDERS. 

By Edward Marshall. The most intensely interesting book of 
modern times. It is devoted entirely to this one famous regi- 
ment. It contains a complete roster of the regiment, and is 
profusely illustrated from photographs and drawings. Cloth 

bound. ........ 1.50 


WATERS THAT PASS AWAY. 

By N. B. Winston. “ There is a deep lesson of life to be 
learned from a book like this, and in it one may study charac- 
ter, and the infallible trend of social consequences, sorrow 
ever following sin, and sin in its turn yielding to joy when 
true repentance follows after .” — Philadelphia Item. Cloth 

bound. ........ 1.25 


THE RETURN OF THE O’MAHONY. 

By Harold Frederic. To those who have read “ The Damna- 
tion of Theron Ware,” and “ Seth’s Brother’s Wife,” there 
will be found in this extremely delightful novel, ‘‘ The Re- 
turn of the O’Mahony,” a book that will gratify the reader 
much more than any other book of the times. Illustrated, and 
with portrait of the author. Cloth bound, deckle edge, gilt 
top. ^*50 


THE RAIHBOV/ FEATHEE. 


By Fergus Hume. Author of “ Tlie Mystery of a Hansom 
Cab,” “ Claude Duval of Ninety-five,” etc., etc. Published 
simultaneously with the London edition. This is a wonder- 
fully clever story, intensely interesting, the mystery is kept up 
to the end, and when the reader lays down the book it is with 
the satisfaction of having been fully entertained by a remark- 
ably fascinating tale. Cloth bound. . . . 1.25 


HOUSES OF GLASS. 

By Wallace Lloyd, M.D. It is more important than most 
books, and deserves special attention for several reasons. 
From a purely literary standpoint it has claims, being exceed- 
ingly well-written, and most profoundly felt. Besides being 
founded upon philosophy, the story is firm, clear-cut, and so 
interesting as to lift the book far above the level of ordinary 
romances. Cloth bound. , . . . . 1.50 


BEVERLY OSGOOD ; or, When the Great City is Awake. 

By Jane Valentine. This romance sets forth New York life 
as seen by a student of city conditions of both rich and poor. 
In Nina Palermo, the heroine, is a convincing illustration of 
the fearful effect of evil circumstances on the life of an inno- 
cent and beautiful but poor girl. The wide influence of truly 
good and Christian women toward uplifting the fallen and 
quietly aiding reform, is also portrayed in the character of 
“ My Lady.” It is a work which should do much good. 
Cloth bound. ....... 1.50 


MY FRIEND THE CAPTAIN; or, Two Yankees in Europe. 

By W. L. Terhune. The book is one which has much value 
as a guide book for people going abroad. It has much of in- 
terest to those who have never been abroad. Mr. Terhune’s 
camera served him well, and the book is embellished with 
a hundred or more illustrations from his photographs. Cloth 
bound. ........ 1.50 


A CHEQUE FOR THREE THOUSAND. 

By Arthur Henry Veysey. (Tenth edition.) It’s a jolly good 
story, bright and clear. Dramatic, full of life and action and 
a brilliant farce from end to end. You cannot put it down 
until you finish it, and you will mention it many a time when 
you want to relate something novel and odd among your 
friends. Attractively bound in cloth. . . i.oo 

A PEDIGREE IN PAWN. 

By Arthur Henry Veysey. Author of “ A Cheque for Three 
Thousand,” which has run into its seventh edition. Original,, 
bright, sparkling fun runs all through “ A Pedigree in Pawn.” 
It will be talked about and laughed over more than any other 
book of the year. Illustrated with 14 character drawings. 
Cloth bound. ....... 1.25 

HATS OFF. 

By Arthur Henry Veysey. Author of “ A Cheque for Three 
Thousand,” etc. A splendid story for summer reading. Are 
you tired, blue? Read Hats Off! Do you want a story 
for the hammock? B^ad Hats Off! Do you want a story 
with “go,” with an original plot? Read Hats Off! Do you 
want to laugh? Read Hats Off! Cloth bound. . 1,25 

Paper covers. . 50 

THE STATEROOM OPPOSITE. 

By Arthur Henry Veysey. Author of “A Cheque for Three 
Thousand,” etc. Is a well balanced detective story. It is 
not overdrawn as such books usually are, but full of mysterious 
and vital interest. It is a departure from Mr, Veysey’s previous 
humorous style in “ A Cheque for Three Thousand,” and “ A 
Pedigree in Pawn,” proving him to be a remarkably versatile 
writer. Most of the events take place on shipboard. It is a 
powerful story, with a most dramatic climax, and inimitably 
original characters. Cloth bound. . . . 1.25 

Paper covers. ... 50 

CLEO THE MAGNIFICENT; or, The Muse of the Real. 

By Louis Zangwill. The Boston Times says: “The story is 
drawn with a master hand and the characters stand forth in 
clear relief. It is in every way worthy of Mr. Zangwill’s 
reputation.” One of the best novels of the year. Cloth 

bound. ........ 1.50 


THE DHONES MUST DIE. 

By Max Nordau. Sixth Edition. “ As purely original as if no 
other novel had ever been written. The open secret of such 
writing is that it is the result of the experience and the ob- 
servation of one of the keenest observers — a man who exag- 
gerates nothing and sets down naught in malice, but sees with 
incomparable clearness, and writes down what he sees.” — 
The Bookseller and Newsman. .... 2.00 


TWO ODD GIRLS. 

A charming novel, by John A. Peters. A bright, clever and 
interesting story is this, with a vein of humor underlying and 
running through it. The style of the novel is brilliant and 
will be read with pleasure and avidity by all who peruse its 
first page. Cloth bound. ..... 1.50 

MOTHER TRUTH’S MELODIES. 

By Mrs. E. P. Miller. A kindergarten of the most useful 
knowledge for children, 450 illustrations. “ Every lover of 
children and of truth will be interested in this charming book ; 
every house in the land should have a copy ; it will entertain 
and instruct more truly and more sensibly than any other 
book. It is made up of simple stories in verse, the jingle of 
which may be music in the children’s ears, and the pictures a 
delight to little eyes ; made in a form to attract the attention 
of the smallest children, and one to readily fix in their mem- 
ory the stories told.” Cloth bound. . . . 1.50 

THE TWENTIETH CENTURY COOK BOOK. 

By Mrs. C. F. Moritz and Adele Kahn. A modern and com- 
plete household cook book such as this is, since cooking has 
come to be a science no less than an art must find a welcome 
and become the most popular cook book of all the many now 
published. 

‘‘ It can hardly be realized that there is anything worth eating 
that its receipt cannot be found in this volume. This volume 
has been carefully compiled and contains not only the re- 
ceipts for an elaborate menu, but also the modest ones have 
been considered .” — Bookseller and Newsman. Bound in oil 
cloth, for kitchen use. ..... 1.50 



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